No. 36 — Aguna Chinawa
A tennyo, a celestial maiden, descended to a young man who loved learning and became his wife. The cloth she wove over three years caught a lord's eye. Doubting the wife's true nature, the lord set the young man impossible tasks, ordering him to bring a thousand bundles of rope made of ash and the thunder god. Through the tennyo's power the young man accomplished these and drove the lord away. Later he visited his wife's father in the heavens, Bonten, a god of the heavens, and was received with hospitality, but a red oni, a red-skinned ogre, whom he had carelessly helped, carried his wife off. With the power of a flute he had been given, the young man calmed the red oni and got his wife back, and Bonten struck down the red oni, so the couple returned home safely.
- Land
- Shiwa District
- Beings
- tennyo, Bonten, red oni
This is an English rendering of our short Japanese summary of the source tale — a summary translated from the Japanese, not a translation of the original text. The summary was drafted and translated with AI assistance, and names and numbers were checked against our records. Tale numbers for this book follow the order in which the tales appear; they are ours, not the book's.