Editing Urashima Tarō (section)

=== Versions retold in English ===
The story entitled "The Fisher-boy Urashima" (1886) retold by [[Basil Hall Chamberlain]], was number 8 in the "Japanese Fairy Tale Series",{{sfnp|Chamberlain|1886}}<ref name="chamberlain-tr-miyao-ed"/> printed by [[Hasegawa Takejirō]], the issuer of many such ''chirimen-bon'' or "crepe-paper books".<ref name=sharf /> Although the illustrations are not credited in the publication, they have been attributed to [[Kobayashi Eitaku]].<ref name=tablada /><ref name=kyoto-u-foreign-studies />

There is no single base text in Japanese identifiable, although it has been conjectured that Chamberlain adapted from "a popular version" and not straying far from it except adding explanatory or instructive passages for young readers.{{sfnp|Takanashi|1989|pp=121, 127}} Others have determined it must have been a composite consisting of older traditions from the ''[[Nihon Shoki]]'' and ''[[Man'yōshū]]'', combined with the near-modern Otogizōshi storybook plot,{{sfnp|Satomi|2001|p=100}} Chamberlain preferring to incorporate details from the ancient texts, while eschewing embellishment from the Otogizōshi.{{sfnp|Makino|2011|p=129}} Chamberlain has also published a [[Verse (poetry)|versified]] version of the tale.<ref name=chamberlain&mason/>

In Chamberlain's fairytale version, "Urashima" (not "Tarō") catches a tortoise (''[[sic]]''){{Refn|group="lower-alpha"|It has been pointed out that while "tortoise" can be a turtle or a land turtle, the "[[tortoiseshell]]" of Japan is ''bekko'',{{sfnp|Takanashi|1989|p=124}} and this normally signifies a product taken from the shell of the [[hawksbill sea turtle]].}} while fishing on his boat, and releases it. The tortoise reappears in her true form as the Sea-God's daughter, and invites him to the Dragon Palace.{{Efn|Here, the Dragon Palace is not submerged in the ocean; the two of them reach it rowing by boat.}}{{Refn|group="lower-alpha"|The halls of the four season are lacking in the Dragon Palace here.{{sfnp|Makino|2011|p=100}}}}

There the couple are married and live happily for 3 years, but Urashima misses seeing his parents and his brothers. The Dragon Princess reluctantly allows him to leave, giving him a box he is instructed never to open, for it will cause him never to be able to return to the palace. When he returns to his home village, his absence turns out to have been 400 years. Urashima now wishes to go back to the Dragon Palace but he does not know the means, and opens the box. He turns into a white-haired, wrinkled old man and dies.<ref>{{harvp|Chamberlain|1886}}, ''The Fisher-boy Urashima''</ref> The ending by death concurs with older tradition,{{Refn|group="lower-alpha"|The ''Nihon Shoki'', the ''Fudoki'' of Tango Province, and the ''Man'yōshū''.{{sfnp|Makino|2011|p=129}}}}{{Refn|group="lower-alpha"|The death occurs in summer, in keeping with the ''Nihon Shoki'' which dates it to the seventh month of the 22nd year of Emperor Yuryaku.}} and not the ''otogi-zōshi'' storybook.{{sfnp|Makino|2011|p=129}}

[[Lafcadio Hearn]], who lived in Japan and translated or adapted many ghost stories from the country, rewrote the Urashima tale under the title "[[The Dream of a Summer Day]]" in the late 19th century, working off of a copy of Chamberlain's "Japanese Fairy Tale Series" version.<ref>{{cite book|last=Hearn |first=Lafcadio |title=Out of the East: Reveries and Studies in New Japan |location=Boston and New York|publisher=Houghton, Mifflin |year=1895 |url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924021575208 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/cu31924021575208/page/n12 1]–27}}</ref>