Japanese Folk Tales
Momotaro, grateful animals, quarrelling monkeys and crabs, foxes and mountain spirits appear in these Japanese tales and legends. English-language sources include collections by Yei Theodora Ozaki and William Elliot Griffis.
A familiar title may have a very different ending in an older telling. Source notes and reading guidance help distinguish comic adventures from stories involving loss, revenge or violence.
26 stories are in this collection right now.
Browse by region: Japan.
Japanese Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Story of the Old Man Who Made Withered Trees to Flower
A kind old man’s faithful dog leads him to buried gold, and even after a jealous neighbor’s cruelty, the dog’s gifts make dead trees burst into bloom.
Japanese Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Happy Hunter and the Skillful Fisher
After losing his brother’s precious fish-hook, a prince travels to the Dragon King’s palace beneath the sea and comes home with jewels that rule the tides.
Japanese Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Sagacious Monkey and the Boar
An old performing monkey about to be sold to the butcher asks a wise boar for help, and the two stage a baby-snatching so the monkey can be the hero.
Japanese Folk Tales
The Goblin of Adachigahara
A lost pilgrim shelters with a kind old woman on a haunted plain, peeks into the room she told him never to open, and runs for his life until dawn.
Japanese Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Mirror of Matsuyama
A dying mother gives her daughter a mirror, and the girl’s faith that she sees her mother’s face in it leads a jealous stepmother to accuse her of witchcraft.
Japanese Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Bamboo-Cutter and the Moon-Child
An old man finds a shining girl inside a bamboo stem; she sets five suitors impossible tasks, refuses an emperor, and is carried back to the moon.
Japanese Folk Tales
The Story of the Man Who Did Not Wish to Die
Sentaro wants to live forever, so a saint sends him on a paper crane to an island where nobody can die and everyone longs to, until a shark tests his wish.
Japanese Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Adventures of Kintaro, the Golden Boy
A boy of amazing strength grows up wrestling with mountain animals until a disguised general sees him uproot a tree and takes him to become a samurai.
Japanese Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The “Shinansha,” or the South Pointing Carriage
In this legend, Emperor Kotei counters a fog-making enemy with a south-pointing chariot, and the storyteller also credits him with inventing a boat.
Japanese Folk Tales
The Farmer and the Badger
A wicked badger tricks and kills a farmer’s trusting wife, and a loyal rabbit punishes him with burning grass, a pepper salve and a boat of clay.
Japanese Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Story of Urashima Taro, the Fisher Lad
A kind fisherman rescues a tortoise, marries the Sea King’s daughter, and returns home after three days to find that three hundred years have passed.
Japanese Folk Tales
The Tongue-Cut Sparrow
A kind old man finds the sparrow his cruel wife drove away and chooses a small box of treasure, while his greedy wife carries home a box of demons.