著者

伊藤 清司

出版者

三田史学会

雑誌

史學 (ISSN:03869334)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.34, no.3, pp.277-303, 1962-03

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The folk-tale called the "Portrait Wife" Story in Japan is of the same type as the "Featherclothing" (鳥衣説話) in China. The latter has been already discussed by W. Eberhard, and the outline of the story is as follows: (cf. Typen Chinesischer Volksmarchen 195, Das Federkleid FFC No. 120.) 1. Ein Mann hat eine so schone Frau, dass er sich nie von ihr trennen kann. 2. Aus wirtschaftlichen Grunden muss er aber Geld verdienen. 3. Die Frau gibt ihm ein Bild von sich mit als Ersatz dafur, dass er sie nicht sehen kann. 4. Das Bild wird vom Wind in den Hof des Konigs getragen. 5. Der Konig lasst sie suchen und holen ; sie wird Konigin. 6. Der Mann macht sich ein Kleid aus Federn und kommt eines Tages auf Verabredung an den Hof und bieted Gemuse an. 7. Seine Frau lacht zum ersten Mai, als sie sieht. 8. Der Konig, der sehr betrubt darubt war, dass sie nie lachte, freut sich, tauscht das Federkleid mit dem Konigskleid. 9. Der mann lasst den ins Federkleid gekleideten Konig toten, wird selbst Konig. This type of stories have been found widely among the Chinese of the several provinces-Chiang-su (江蘇), Che-chiang (浙江), Kuang-tung (廣東), which have been mentioned by Eberhand, and Anhui (安徽), etc.; moreover, it is found among such minorities as Miao (苗), Bai (白), Tibet (藏), Zhuang (僮) and Nasi (納西), etc. of the province of Hu-nan (湖南), Kui-chou (貴州), Ssu-ch'uan (四川), Yun-nan (雲南) and Hsi-kang (西康), etc. These folk stories are often accompanied by the introductory parts which tell how a beautiful woman passed through life before she gets married to a poor young man, and these introductory stories are divided broadly into three groups: 1. a group of stories in which the beautiful woman is a heavenly maiden or a dragon-daughter. 2. a group of stories in which she is high-born, for expample a princess. 3. no introductory stories. The groups (1) and (2) are further divided into some outgroups respectively. We find it difficult to tell which of the above mentioned groups is the original pattern of the introductory part of the "Featherclothing" Story. The "Portrit Wife" stories in Japan also have various kinds of introductory parts, which are classified into three groups as well, and most of which have exactly the same introductory stories as in the "Featherclothing" Story in China. This fact seems to prove that the "Portrait Wife" Story and the "Featherclothing" Story have the same origin. But the problem is not so simple, for we find one remarkable difference between the story in China and that in Japan. In the former, the hero visits his wife in the palace, wearing the feather clothing (rarely the skin clothing) which she commanded him to wear when she was about to be taken out of her house by the emperor; in the latter, as we can see from the fact that this story is not called "Featherclothing" Story, the hero has not received any instruction from her about the clothing to put on. Accordingly I will set forth my own view, which is as follows: It is not in point to presume that the "Featherclothing" Stories that had various kinds of stories in their introductory part came to lose the factor of feather clothing after they came to Japan. Probably they had already lost this factor in China, and got mixed with many folk stories after they came to Japan, and came to have various kinds of stories in their introductory parts. What does the feather clothing-the remarkable factor in the "Featherclothing" Story in China-mean on earth ? The Japanese type of these stories has its originality in lacking that factor, but the heroine in Chinese ones never leaves her husband without commanding him to put on the feather clothing. Why ? The principal point is that the story has the factors where the man is always under the control of his wife who was oridiginally a heaven maiden in the introductory part (for example, the Featherclothing story in Kuantung), and it is by the feather clothing that she makes the poor, honest man happy. I think that it is by the mysterious power that, on wearing, the man's feather clothing, the emperor fall into misery. The folk tale talked among the "Ch'uan Miao" (川苗) is very suggestive in the respect, it runs that a Warty Toad obtained a good wife, became human, and became Emperor, (cf. D. C. Graham: Songs and Stories of the Ch'uan Miao. p.182-183). This is evidently a complex story which contained factors of other stories, and the outline of it is as follows: The emperor stole away the wife of the toad to be his wife. The warty toard followed along after his wife and the emperor. He followed them until they arrived in a big flat. When the warty toad arrived there, he turned somersaults. When he turned over a somersault he turned in to a yangman. When he turned a somersant back again, he turned again into a warty toad. The emperor looked at it, and the wife said to the emper- or., "If you will put on the clothing of the warty toad, I will believe you more." Then the emperor took off his clothing and gave it to the warty toard, and the warty toad took off his skin and gave it to the emperor. The emperor put on that skin and turned over a somersault, and that skin stuck to him, when he turned a somersault back again, he could not take off that skin. Additionally a common factor in the "Featherclothing" Story and the "Portrait Wife" Story-namely the factor that after the wife gave her husband her portrait, it is thrown off by the windseems not to be found in the original pattern of the Stories. But it seems to me that in earlier times-at least before the Story came from China to Japan,-the factor had already come into the Story and made it more interesting.