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Ancient Tales and Folk-lore of Japan: LI. The Dragon-Shap...

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This is a Japanese folk tale from Richard Gordon Smith's 1918 collection *Ancient Tales and Folk-lore of Japan*, set in 1716. It follows Hambei, an elderly gardener in Momoyama Fushimi, whose prized "furyo" (lying dragon) plum tree — inherited from his ancestors and beloved as a companion — is coveted by a powerful court official (dainagon) and obtained through the persuasive maneuvering of his steward Kotaro. The central event is the tree's spirit appearing as a weeping young woman who pleads with Hambei not to be uprooted, triggering a confrontation in which Kotaro, enraged by Hambei's broken promise, nearly kills the old man before the spirit intervenes and is struck by his sword, falling as a severed branch. The dainagon, moved by the account, relents and lets Hambei keep both the tree and the gold — but the tree dies from the wound regardless, and its stump is venerated afterward. The story reflects classical Japanese animist sensibility, treating trees as possessing feelings, loyalty, and spiritual agency, while also dramatizing the tension between ordinary people and aristocratic power, resolved not through resistance but through the supernatural asserting a moral claim that rank cannot override.

Ancient Tales and Folk-lore of Japan: LI. The Dragon-Shap...

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