Urikohime, Uriko-hime or Uriko Hime (うりこひめ;

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

: ''Princess Melon'',. ''Melon Maid'' or ''Melon Princess'') is a Japanese folktale about a girl that is born out of a

melon A melon is any of various plants of the family Cucurbitaceae with sweet, edible, and fleshy fruit. The word "melon" can refer to either the plant or specifically to the fruit. Botanically, a melon is a kind of berry, specifically a " pepo". Th ...

, adopted by a family and replaced by a creature named

Amanojaku The is a demon-like creature in Japanese folklore. Mythology It is usually depicted as a kind of small oni and is thought to be able to provoke a person's darkest desires and thus instigates them into perpetrating wicked deeds. It is described ...

Summary

A melon comes washing down the stream until it is found by a human couple. They cut open the fruit and a girl appears out of it. They name her ''Urikohime'' (''uri'' means "melon" in

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

). They raise her and she becomes a beautiful young lady. One day, she is left alone at home and told to be careful of any stranger who comes knocking. Unfortunately, a youkai named

sets its sights on the girl. The creature appears at her house and asks the girl to open. She opens the door just a bit and the creature forces its entry in her house. In one version of the story, Amanojaku kills Urikohime and wears her skin. The creature replaces Urikohime as the couple's daughter, but its disguise is ruined when the girl, reincarnated as a little bird, reveals the deception and eventually regains her human form. In another account, Urikohime becomes known for her great weaving abilities. Due to this, she is betrothed to a lord or prince. Before she marries, Amanojaku kills her and wears her dress, or ties her to a

persimmon The persimmon is the edible fruit of a number of species of trees in the genus '' Diospyros''. The most widely cultivated of these is the Oriental persimmon, ''Diospyros kaki'' ''Diospyros'' is in the family Ebenaceae, and a number of non-per ...

tree. The false bride is taken to the wedding on a

palanquin The litter is a class of wheelless vehicles, a type of human-powered transport, for the transport of people. Smaller litters may take the form of open chairs or beds carried by two or more carriers, some being enclosed for protection from the el ...

, but the ruse is discovered. In the version where she is tied up, Urikohime cries out to anyone to hear and is rescued. The creature is chased away.

Alternate names

Scholar

Kunio Yanagita Kunio Yanagita (柳田國男, Yanagita Kunio, July 31, 1875 – August 8, 1962) was a Japanese author, scholar, and folklorist. He began his career as a bureaucrat, but developed an interest in rural Japan and its folk traditions. This led to a ...

indicated alternate names to the tale: ''Urikohimeko'', ''Urihime'', ''Urihimeko''.

Distribution

According to Japanese folklorist

Keigo Seki was a Japanese folklorist. He was joined a group under Yanagita Kunio, but often came to different conclusions regarding the same folktales. Along with collecting and compiling folktales, Seki also arranged them into a series of categories. This ...

's notations, several variations are recorded in Japanese compilations. Further studies show that the tale can be found all over the

Japanese archipelago The Japanese archipelago (Japanese: 日本列島, ''Nihon rettō'') is a group of 6,852 islands that form the country of Japan, as well as the Russian island of Sakhalin. It extends over from the Sea of Okhotsk in the northeast to the East Chin ...

. Hiroko Ikeda's index of Japanese tales lists 102 versions of the story. According to Fanny Hagin Mayer, "most versions" of the story end on a tragic note, but all seem to indicate the great

weaving Weaving is a method of textile production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. Other methods are knitting, crocheting, felting, and braiding or plaiting. The longitudinal ...

skills of Urikohime. Scholar

listed the tale ''Nishiki Chōja'' as one version of the story that contains a happy ending.

Analysis

Japanese scholarship argues for some relationship between this tale and Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index tale type ATU 408, " The Three Citrons", since both tales involve a maiden born of a fruit and her replacement for a false bride (in the tale type) and for evil creature

(in Japanese versions). In fact, professor Hiroko Ikeda classified the story of Urikohime as type 408B in his Japanese catalogue. Attention has also been drawn to the motif of "The False Bride" that exists in both tales: in ''Urikohime'', the youkai or ogress wears the skin of the slain girl. Folklorist Christine Goldberg recognizes that this is the motif ''Disguised Flayer'' (motif K1941 in the ''

Motif-Index of Folk-Literature The ''Motif-Index of Folk-Literature'' is a six volume catalogue of motifs, granular elements of folklore, composed by American folklorist Stith Thompson (1932–1936, revised and expanded 1955–1958). Often referred to as Thompson's motif-index ...

''). This disguise is also used by heroines in other folktales. Professor Fanny Hagin Mayer remarked on the characters of the elderly couple that adopts Urikohime, which appear in several other Japanese folktales as a set. The elderly woman teaches her adopted daughter skills in weaving..

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * *

External links

Link to a variant of Urikohime and similar tales
{{Japanese folklore long Japanese fairy tales Japanese folklore ATU 400-459 es:Urikohime to Amanojaku ja:うりこひめとあまのじゃく zh:瓜子姬與天邪鬼