Iwate Prefecture — Tono

Based on Yanagita Kunio, Tono Monogatari (1910). 118 of 118 tales are available in English so far.

• Tale 1The origin and geography of TonoTono was a flatland surrounded by the mountains of Kamihei District, Rikuchu, and consisted of one town and ten villages. It is told that what was…
• Tale 2The legend of the three yama-onna goddesses of HayachineThe three mountains of Hayachine, Rokkoshi, and Ishigami are said to have come about when a mother goddess visited with her three daughters and…
• Tale 3The black-haired woman of the mountains and the yama-otokoThe hunter Sasaki Kahei encountered a woman with long black hair in the mountains and shot her down with his gun. As proof, he cut off her hair and…
• Tale 4A woman with a child crossing a bamboo-grass fieldAs Kichibei of Yamaguchi village was cutting bamboo grass on Mount Nekkodachi, a beautiful woman carrying a child on her back came walking across the…
• Tale 5Yama-otoko and yama-onna appear at Fuefuki PassFuefuki Pass, which had been a shortcut toward the coast, came to be feared by people after rumors spread that one might meet a yama-otoko, a man of…
• Tale 6The choja's daughter becomes the wife of a yama-otokoThe daughter of a choja, a very rich man, of Nukanomae in Aozasa village was taken and hidden away by something, and was long missing, but a hunter…
• Tale 7The daughter met again in Mount GoyoA daughter of Kamigo village went out to gather chestnuts and disappeared, and her family even held a funeral for her, but several years later a…
• Tale 8The old woman of Samuto comes home on windy daysA girl of Samuto in Matsuzaki village left her straw sandals under a pear tree and went missing, and after more than thirty years she suddenly came…
• Tale 9A voice calls from the bottom of the valley at OyachiKikuchi Yanosuke, a master of the flute, was crossing Sakaige Pass with his companions, and as he played his flute passing above Oyachi, someone…
• Tale 10The sister's scream heard at the mountain hutA man who had lodged in a hut deep in the mountains to gather mushrooms heard, late at night, a woman's cry of "kyaa" from far off, and his heart…
• Tale 11The strife between daughter-in-law and mother-in-law, and Magoshiro's violenceFrom discord between a daughter-in-law and her mother-in-law, the son Magoshiro sharpened a great sickle meaning to kill his mother, shut all the…
• Tale 12Otojii who told old talesThe old man Nitta Otozo of Yamaguchi, Tsuchibuchi village was the person who knew best the chronicles of the village manor, the rise and fall of its…
• Tale 13The life of the old man who lived at the passFor decades he lived alone in a hut at the pass in the mountains. Since losing his fortune when young, he had given up the world and made his living…
• Tale 14The rites of Okunai-sama and Oshira-samaIn an old family, the Daido era, they enshrined a wooden image called Okunai-sama, a household god, carved from mulberry wood, and on the fifteenth…
• Tale 15Okunai-sama's miracle at rice plantingThe Abe family, short of hands for rice planting, was in trouble when an unknown boy appeared and helped, finishing the rice planting by dusk. The…
• Tale 16Konse-sama and Okoma-samaThere were not a few houses that enshrined Konse-sama, a god of horses and fertility, and its sacred body closely resembled that of Okoma-sama, a god…
• Tale 17Sightings of the zashiki-warashiIt was said that old family houses were home to a god called the zashiki-warashi, a child spirit that lives in old houses, a child of about twelve or…
• Tale 18The decline of the house the zashiki-warashi leftIt was said that two child goddesses lived in the house of Yamaguchi Magozaemon, an old family, but one day a man met two unfamiliar girls by a…
• Tale 19A whole family wiped out by poisonous mushroomsIn Magozaemon's house, unfamiliar mushrooms grew around a pear tree. Following a saying that if well stirred in a water tub they would not poison…
• Tale 20The snake's curse and the snake moundBefore the ill fortune came, while stirring the fodder a large snake, a serpent, often a spirit in disguise, appeared, and though the master told…
• Tale 21Magozaemon and the Inari foxMagozaemon, who had a scholar's temperament, wishing to grow close to a fox, a shape-shifting fox, and to enrich his family's fortune, built an Inari…
• Tale 22The dead grandmother's ghostsOn the night the great-grandmother of the Sasaki family died, the mother and grandmother who were in the room for the wake saw the figure of the dead…
• Tale 23The spirit of an old woman appeared on the eve of the memorialOn the eve of the fourteenth-day memorial, the people who had finished the nembutsu prayers and were about to go home saw an old woman sitting on a…
• Tale 24The origin of old families called the Daido eraIt is said that old families in the villages are called the Daido era because they were families that had moved from Kai Province in the first year…
• Tale 25The origin of laying down one side of the kadomatsuThe ancestors of the Daido era arrived in this region at the end of the year, and before they had put up more than one side of the kadomatsu, it…
• Tale 26The Abe clan, an old family of master carversThe Abe clan, called Tanbo-no-uchi of Kashiwazaki, was a well-known old family. A former head of the family was skilled at carving, and many of the…
• Tale 27The golden millstone of IkenohataAt the Hei River, a young woman entrusted a letter to the ancestor of the Ikenohata family. Following a pilgrim's teaching, he rewrote the letter…
• Tale 28The slaying of the monster monk of HayachineA hunter from Tsukumoushi village who was the first to cut a mountain path into Hayachine was roasting mochi in a makeshift hut when a large monk…
• Tale 29The tengu and gold of Mount KeitoTo Mount Keito, where a tengu, a long-nosed mountain spirit, was said to live and which even those on pilgrimage to Hayachine avoided, a man known as…
• Tale 30A big man sleeps at HayachineA man from Oguni village went to Hayachine to cut bamboo, and found a big man lying on his back in a thicket of dwarf bamboo, asleep and snoring…
• Tale 31Children carried off by ijinAmong the children of households in Tono, every year there were many who were carried off by ijin, a stranger from outside the village, and went…
• Tale 32Mount Senbangatake's white deer and the Shisuke mountain godsThe swamp at Mount Senbangatake lay in a valley that smelled terribly raw, and the mountain took its name from the time long ago when a hunter called…
• Tale 33The mysterious light of Mount Shiromi and the phantom goldWhen one spent the night on Shiromi mountain, the area grew faintly bright around midnight, and from beyond the valley one might hear the sound of a…
• Tale 34The woman of the Hanaremori choja mansionThe mountains of Shiromi led on to the Chojayashiki in Hanaremori, an uninhabited place; a man who burned charcoal there saw, at night, a long-haired…
• Tale 35The woman who runs across ShiromiThe younger brother of Sasaki's grandfather, while gathering mushrooms and lodging for the night at Shiromi, saw a woman go as if running through the…
• Tale 36The futtachi of monkey and wolfThe futtachi, an animal grown so old it turns uncanny, of the monkey and of the wolf, the mountain wolf once called o-inu, were fearsome things. At…
• Tale 37A pack of wolf and the warding off of fireBetween Sakaige Pass and Wayama Pass, in the old days the packhorse drivers who drove their horses along the night road often met a pack of wolf, the…
• Tale 38A wolf calamity invited by drunkennessThe master of an old family in Otomo village got drunk on sake and imitated the howl of a wolf, the mountain wolf once called o-inu, and the wolf…
• Tale 39The deer eaten by a wolfWhen Sasaki was young, he was returning from the mountain with his grandfather, and near the village, on the bank of a valley stream, they found the…
• Tale 40The wolf's camouflage and coat colorIt was said that if the grass grew to about three sun in height, the wolf, the mountain wolf, once called o-inu, could hide itself within it. It was…
• Tale 41The great pack of wolfs crossing the passOne autumn evening, Sasaki Kahei of Wano went out hunting at Oyachi across Sakaige Crossing, and saw several hundred wolfs, the mountain wolf, once…
• Tale 42The wolf hunt and Tetsu's endAt the foot of Mount Rokkoshi, in a reed-covered hill, a person of Iide village found three wolf cubs, the mountain wolf once called o-inu, killed…
• Tale 43A tale of grappling with bearA man called bear from Kamigo village went hunting with a friend at Mount Rokkoshi on a snowy day. They came upon a large bear, and he threw down his…
• Tale 44The flute-playing man and the futtachiAt a mine in Hashino village, on the ridge continuing from Rokkoshi, a man skilled at the flute who burned charcoal lay on his back in his hut one…
• Tale 45The appearance and habits of the futtachiIt was said that a monkey, old mountain monkeys said to turn uncanny, behaved very much like a human and, being fond of women, often carried off…
• Tale 46Futtachi and the deer hunter's mistakeA man of nearly fifty living in Hayashizaki, Tochinai village, had gone deer hunting on Mount Rokkoshi more than ten years before and blew an oki (a…
• Tale 47Rumor of the futtachi that frightens childrenIn this region, it was customary when scolding children to say, 'The monkey of Rokkoshi will come!' In fact, this mountain had many monkeys, old…
• Tale 48The mischievous monkeys of Sennin PassMany monkeys also lived on Sennin Pass, and it was said that they sometimes played mischievous tricks on passersby, clinging to them or throwing…
• Tale 49Record of strange happenings at SennindoHalfway up Sennin Pass stood Sennindo, a hall enshrining a mountain hermit, and travelers kept the custom of writing down the strange things they met…
• Tale 50The kakko flowers of Mount ShisukeOn Mount Shisuke there bloomed kakko flowers, rare even for Tono. Around the fifth month, when the cuckoo called, women and children went up the…
• Tale 51The sad love of the otto-doriThe bird that cried with the loneliest voice in the mountains was the otto-dori, a bird said to call for a lost husband. The daughter of a choja, a…
• Tale 52The umaoidori and the omen of famineThe umaoidori, the bird said to call the horses home, resembled a cuckoo. A servant in the household of a choja, a very rich man, let one horse out…
• Tale 53The tale of the cuckoo and the lesser cuckoo sistersThe cuckoo and the lesser cuckoo were once sisters. The elder sister ate the hard part of a potato herself and gave the soft part to the younger one…
• Tale 54The house of the dead at the bottom of the poolA servant of a choja, a very rich man, in Kawai village dropped an axe into a pool, and when he went down into the bottom of the water, he found the…
• Tale 55The girl who conceived a kappa's childMany kappa, a river creature, lived along the Sarugaishi River, and in a house in Matsuzaki village there was, across two generations, someone who…
• Tale 56The abandoned kappa child disappearsIn a certain house in Kamigo village too, a child that seemed to be a kappa, a river creature, was born. Because its whole body was red and its mouth…
• Tale 57The footprints of the kappaIt was not rare to see the footprints of a kappa on the sand of the riverbank, and they were especially many the day after rain. Like a monkey's…
• Tale 58The capture of the kappa who pulled a horseAt the house of Shinya, when they took a horse to cool it at a pool, a kappa, a river creature, tried to pull the horse in but was instead dragged…
• Tale 59A sighting of a red-faced kappaElsewhere, kappa, a river creature, were said to have blue faces, but the kappa of Tono were said to have red faces. When Sasaki's great-grandmother…
• Tale 60The hunter who was bewitched by a foxOld man Kahei of Wano village was waiting in a pheasant blind when a fox, a shape-shifting fox, appeared again and again to drive the pheasants away.…
• Tale 61The stone that turned into a white deerA famous hunter encountered the white deer at Rokkoshi. The white deer was regarded as a god, and though he feared its curse, he fired at it, but the…
• Tale 62The red-robed apparition in the mountainsA hunter, meaning to spend the night in the mountains, encircled a great tree with a protective rope and slept. A large being in the form of a monk…
• Tale 63The mayoiga and the golden bowlThe wife of an ancestor of the Miura family of Oguni went deep into the mountains to gather butterbur shoots, and came upon a fine, empty house, a…
• Tale 64The mayoiga where a bridegroom lost his wayA man who left Kanesawa village to marry into Tochinai village lost his way on a mountain path and came upon a splendid, uninhabited house, a…
• Tale 65The rain omen of AbegajoOn the steep cliffside of Mount Hayachine there was a rock called Abegajo, and it was said that the mother of Abe no Sadato still lived there. On…
• Tale 66Hayachine and the legend of SadatoAt the climbing entrance on the Tsukumoushi side of Hayachine too there was a rock cavern called Abeyashiki, and the whole of Hayachine was said to…
• Tale 67The legend of Sadato's old camp siteIn the mountains on the border between Tsuchibuchi village and Kuribashi village (formerly Hashino), two or three ri in from the climbing path, there…
• Tale 69The origin of Oshira-samaWhen the father of a poor farmer's daughter learned that she had become husband and wife with her beloved horse, he killed the horse. The daughter…
• Tale 70The origin of Okunai-samaThe Okunai-sama, a household god, was said to always be enshrined together with the Oshira-sama, a household god kept as small cloth-wrapped figures…
• Tale 71The old woman's secret faithThe old woman who told the origin of Oshira-sama, a household god kept as small cloth-wrapped figures, was a devoted chanter of the Buddha's name…
• Tale 72The curse of Kakura-samaAt the mound by the entrance to Kotobata in Tochinai village, a wooden seated image, said to have once been kept inside a hall, was enshrined as…
• Tale 73The wooden statues of Kakura-samaIn Tono there were many wooden statues of Kakura-sama, a roadside god children played with, including some in Nishinai, in Tochinai and Ohora, in…
• Tale 74The origin and appearance of Kakura-samaAt Tochinai the Kakura-sama, a roadside god children played with, numbered two, large and small, and in the whole village of Tsuchibuchi there were…
• Tale 75The woman who appeared at the match factoryAt the match factory shed that stood at the Chojayashiki in Hanaremori, a woman appeared in the doorway at night and laughed when she saw people, so…
• Tale 76Chojayashiki and the legend of buried goldChojayashiki is said to be the site of the former dwelling of a choja, a very rich man, of long ago, and nearby Nukamori is said to have become a…
• Tale 77The illusion of a dead man he stepped overOn the night of a funeral, Tajiri Chozaburo was returning home alone, a little behind the others, when he found an unknown man lying on his back…
• Tale 78The man in a snow cloak and a portent of deathChozo, on his way home from a night out, met a man wearing a snow cloak before the gate. When he looked at him with suspicion, the man vanished…
• Tale 79The man with hands tucked in his robe who vanished at the entranceWhen the previous Chozo came home from a night of amusement, a man with his hands tucked into the front of his robe was standing at the gate.…
• Tale 80Explanation of the Tajiri house's layoutThe author states that, in order to understand the previous tale, it is necessary to illustrate the floor plan of the Tajiri house, and states that…
• Tale 81A pale man lies against the cloud wallWhen Maekawa Mankichi was coming home from a night of pleasure, he looked at the cloud wall at the corner of the veranda and saw a pale-faced man…
• Tale 82A shadow-figure standing in the sitting roomWhen Tajiri Marukichi was a boy, he went into the sitting room meaning to go to the privy, and at the boundary with the parlor there stood a human…
• Tale 83The cursed old documentThe house of Ohora Mannojo, called the Daido era, in Yamaguchi, was built in a manner different from other houses, with its entrance facing the…
• Tale 84Westerners who came to settle on the coastIn the Kaei years, when Sasaki's grandfather was young, many Westerners came to settle at Kamaishi, Yamada, and the tip of the Funakoshi peninsula…
• Tale 85The house with albino brothersIn Kashiwazaki, Tsuchibuchi village, there was a house where albino brothers lived, their hair, skin, and eyes like those of westerners, though both…
• Tale 86The father's spirit that appeared at the hour of deathWhen the father of Masa, a tofu-maker, was gravely ill and near death, he appeared one evening at the site where the ground was being tamped for a…
• Tale 87The master who visited the temple just before deathWhen the master of a wealthy house in Tono was near death from a long illness, he visited the family temple one day and talked with the priest of…
• Tale 88A gravely ill old man visits the templeNear Jokenji Temple, an old man suffering from a grave illness was met, who said that since he had felt well for two or three days, he was going to…
• Tale 89An encounter with mountain gods at Mount AtagoAt the summit of Mount Atago there was a shrine long said to be visited by a mountain gods, gods of the mountains. A young man from Wano, on his way…
• Tale 90The big man of Tengumori and a young man's gruesome deathIn a field at the foot of Tengumori, a young man who was about to doze off saw a big man with a very red face appear before him. The young man, fond…
• Tale 91The death of Torigozen who disturbed the mountain godsTorigozen, who knew the mountains well, went out to gather mushrooms and came upon a red-faced man and woman talking in the shadow of a large rock.…
• Tale 92Children meet a yama-otoko at HayachineChildren from Tsuchibuchi village who had gone to play at Hayachine passed a tall, dark-skinned man with shining eyes while coming down the mountain…
• Tale 93The ijin who told of a child's death at the passKikuchi Kikuzo was crossing Fuefuki Pass to fetch his wife, so she could look after their sick child, when on a dim mountain road a man with a red…
• Tale 94Kikuzo who wrestled with a foxKikuzo was passing through the woods of Mount Atago with mochi in his robe, which he had received from his sister's house in Kashiwazaki, when his…
• Tale 95A mysterious stone and an ascent into the skyA certain Kikuchi, who was fond of making gardens, found an unfamiliar, beautiful large rock in the mountains and tried to bring it home, but being…
• Tale 96The feebleminded man who predicted firesA feebleminded man who lived in the town of Tono had a habit of picking up bits of wood and dust from the road and sniffing them, and from time to…
• Tale 97A near-death experience in typhoid feverWhen Kikuchi Matsunojo of Iide fell critically ill with typhoid fever, he flew as if through the air toward his family temple, and within its gate…
• Tale 98Stone monuments to the roadside godsThere was a custom of erecting stone monuments carved with the names of mountains such as Mount Hayachine and Mount Rokkoshi, as well as stone…
• Tale 99The spirit of the wife lost in the tsunamiFukuji of Tsuchibuchi village lost his wife and children in a great tsunami, and lived in a hut built on the site of his old house. One night in the…
• Tale 100Cutting down a fox disguised as a wifeA fisherman of Funakoshi met a woman who looked like his wife on a night road, believed her to be a monster, and stabbed her to death with a kitchen…
• Tale 101The mystery of a fox that manipulated a dead manA traveler stayed the night at an acquaintance's house in Toyomane village, and a dead person rose up on the floor. When he looked closely, he saw a…
• Tale 102The red-faced giant of the Little New YearOn the night of the Little New Year, it was said that the mountain gods came out to play, and children were warned against going outside. A girl…
• Tale 103The yuki-onna who appears on the Little New YearIt was said that on the Little New Year or on a winter night with a full moon, a yuki-onna, a woman of the snow, appeared leading many children, and…
• Tale 104Walnut moon-viewing divinationOn the night of the Little New Year, there was a practice called moon-viewing in which walnuts were roasted in the hearth to divine the weather for…
• Tale 105The harvest divination of yonakamiOn the night of the Little New Year, there was a custom called yonakami, in which mirror rice cakes made from various kinds of rice were used, and…
• Tale 106The mirage seen at YamadaAt Yamada on the coast, a mirage appeared every year, always showing the scenery of an unfamiliar foreign city, with people and horses seen coming…
• Tale 107The art of divination from the mountain godsA daughter of a house in Kamigo village received leaves from an unknown tall man on the riverbed of the Hayase River, and from that day she gained…
• Tale 108The fortune teller possessed by the mountain godsThere were people in various places who told fortunes when the mountain gods, gods of the mountains, entered into them, and the woodcutter of…
• Tale 109The straw-doll sending of the Amekaze FestivalAround Bon, there was a custom belonging to the Amekaze Festival in which a straw doll larger than a person was made, its face drawn on paper, and it…
• Tale 110The miraculous power of Gongesama and fire-quellingGongesama, a sacred dance-head kept in a house, was a wood-carved image kept by each kagura troupe, resembling a lion's head. There was a tale that…
• Tale 111Dannohana and the abandoning of the old at RendainoIn various places there is a place called Rendaino, facing Dannohana. In old times there was a custom of driving out elders who had passed sixty to…
• Tale 112Dannohana and the relics of the Ezo mansionDannohana was said to be the place where prisoners were cut down in the age when there was a manor, and it stood on a hill at the village border.…
• Tale 113Jozukamori, where an elephant was buriedJozukamori in Wano was said to be the place where an elephant had been buried, and it was told that one should flee there in times of earthquake. In…
• Tale 114The origin of the mansion lord's grave and Yamaguchi MagozaemonThe Dannohana of Yamaguchi is now a common graveyard. Someone who dug beneath the large blue stone in the center found a jar, but was scolded by an…
• Tale 115Folktales and the tale of yamahahaThis was prefaced by saying that in Tono, folktales were called mukashi-mukashi, long-ago tales, and that among them, tales of yamahaha, an old woman…
• Tale 116A girl chased by a yamanbaA yamahaha, an old woman of the mountains who eats people, got into the house of a girl who was left to watch it, and while it was making her eat…
• Tale 117A chicken exposes a yamanba disguised as a daughterWhile the family was away, a yamahaha, an old woman of the mountains who eats people, ate the daughter and put on her skin to take her place. The…
• Tale 118The stepchild tale of NukaboThe tale of Benizara and Kakezara was also told in Tono, and the girl corresponding to Kakezara was called Nukabo. She was hated by her stepmother…
• Tale 119The origin of the shishi-odori songThere was a song that had long been used in the shishi-odori of Tono, and it differed somewhat by region and by person. What the writer heard was…