Reading Notes: Japanese Fairy Tales (Lang), Part B

Tanuki Statues (Wikimedia)

- The tanuki is a Japanese raccoon dog. It appears in Japanese folklore/fairy tales as a sort of trickster character. He is mischievous and cunning. He is capable of shapeshifting and likes to play tricks on people. However, he is often depicted as being somewhat gullible and oblivious.
- The story about the punishment of the wicked tanuki tells about a family who is the only life left living in an overheated forest. The tanuki father, the mother fox, and their tanuki son. The father comes up with a plot, requiring his shapeshifting abilities, to help them acquire food. Later, the mother shape shifts, but her husband betrays her and she's killed. The son figures out what happened, and comes up with a plan to get revenge on his father.
- The tanuki in this story is sly, but he's also a cruel backstabber. He brings about his wife's death for pretty much no reason. Later, when his son decides to get revenge, the elder tanuki exposes himself as not particularly intelligent.
- Basically, the tanuki betrays for no reason other than impulse, and then gets himself killed with his own foolishness. He is a trickster character, but not a particularly good one.
- This story could serve as inspiration to any tale that has a character displaying limited morality, who's downfall then comes from his own shortsightedness and stupidity.



Bibliography: "How the Wicked Tanuki was Punished," The Crimson Fairy Book by Andrew Lang. Web Source.