Page:A History of Japanese Literature (Aston).djvu/289

Rh even at the present day, unless they have been swept away of late years by the advancing tide of European civilisation. Though they bear a general resemblance to such stories as Cinderella, and appear in various forms, I am inclined to think that they are not really folk-lore, but had definite authors, whose names have long been forgotten. The Nedzumi no Yomeiri ("Rat's Wedding") dates from before 1661, while of the Saru-kani Kassen ("Battle of the Ape and the Crab") and the Shitakiri Suzume ("Tongue-cut Sparrow") we have "new editions" which bear the date of Hōyei (1704–1711). Others are Momotaro ("Little Peachling"), Hana Sakaye Jiji ("The Old Man who made Trees to Blossom"), Usagi no Katakiuchi ("The Hare's Revenge"), and Urashima Tarō (a version of the legend told above, p. 39).

The novelist Bakin, a very competent authority on folk-lore, was much interested in these tales, and has been at the pains to ransack Chinese and Japanese literature for anything which might be thought to suggest the incidents related in them.

It would not be quite correct to say that the popular drama owed nothing to the Nō. But it certainly followed a different and independent line of development. Its literary progenitor is the Taiheiki, which, it may be remembered, was chanted or recited in public by men who made this their profession. The Taiheiki was followed by more or less dramatic stories, which were recited by a single person seated before a desk, to the accompaniment of taps of a fan to mark the time or to give emphasis. To this was subsequently added the music of the