Editing Japanese folktales (section)

===History===
These stories just named are considered genuine folktales, having been so characterized by folklorist Kunio Yanagita.<ref>{{cite book |last=Yanagita |first=Kunio(柳田國男) |title= Collected Works (柳田國男全集) |volume=6 |publisher=Tsukuma Shobo |year=1998 |isbn=9784480750662 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g1Q0AQAAIAAJ}}, p.253, says calling them ''otogibanashi'' (see below) is a misnomer, since they are ''mukashi banashi'' (Yanagita's preferred term for folktales orally transmitted)</ref> During the [[Edo period]] these tales had been adapted by professional writers and woodblock-printed in a form a called ''[[kusazōshi]]'' (cf. [[chapbooks]]), but a number of local variant versions of the tales have been collected in the field as well.

As stated above, non-genuine folktales are those already committed to writing long ago, the earliest being the tale of Princess Kaguya (or ''[[The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter]]''), an example of the [[monogatari]] type of romance dated to as early as the 10th century,<ref>{{cite book |last=Dickins |first= F. Victor (Frederick Victor), 1838-1915 |title =The Old Bamboo-Hewer's Story (Taketori no okina no monogatari): The earliest of the Japanese romances, written in the 10th century |via=[[Internet Archive]] |publisher=Trübner |year=1888 |url=https://archive.org/details/oldbamboohewers00dickgoog}}</ref> though extant manuscripts are much later. The text mentions, for example, the flame-proof "{{nihongo |''fire rat'' |[[:ja:火鼠|火鼠]] |[[huoshu|Hinezumi]]}} (or [[Salamander (legendary creature)|salamander]])'s fur robe," which attests to a considerable degree of book-knowledge and learning by its author.

Other examples of pseudo-folktales composed in the Middle Ages are the ''[[Uji Shūi Monogatari]]'' (13th century) that includes <!-- the nucleus of classics as--> [[Kobutori Jisan|''Kobutori Jīsan'']] &mdash; the old man with the hump on his cheek &mdash; and ''[[Straw Millionaire]]''. This and the ''[[Konjaku Monogatarishū]]'' (12th century) contain a number of a type of tales called ''[[setsuwa]]'', a generic term for narratives of various nature, anything from moralizing to comical. Both works are divided into parts containing tales from India, tales from China, and tales from Japan. In the ''Konjaku Monogatarishū'' can be seen the early developments of the [[Kintarō]] legend, familiar in folktale-type form.

The Japanese word used to correspond to "folktale" has undergone development over the years. From the [[Edo period]], the term used was {{Nihongo |''otokibanashi'' |お伽話}}, i.e., tales told by the ''otogii-shū'', professional storytellers hired to entertain the daimyō lord at the bedside.<ref name=heibonsha-mukashibanashi>{{cite book |editor=Heibonsha |script-title=ja:世界百科事典 |title=Sekai hyakka jiten |year=1969 |orig-year=1968 |volume=21 |pages=499–504 |chapter=mukashibanashi |script-chapter=ja:昔話 |first1=Shizuka |last1=Yamamuro |first2=Taizo |last2=Tanaka}}</ref> That term remained in currency through the [[Meiji era]] (late 19th century), when imported terms such as ''minwa'' began to be used.<ref name =heibonsha-mukashibanashi/> In the [[Taishō era]] the word ''dōwa'' (lit. "children's story", a [[loan translation]] for [[fairy tales]] or ''[[wikt:Märchen|märchen]]'') was used.<ref name=heibonsha-mukashibanashi/> Later Yanagita popularized the use of ''mukashi-banashi'' "tales of long ago", as mentioned before.

Some Japanese ghost stories or ''[[kaidan (parapsychology)|kaidan]]'', such as the story of the [[Yuki-onna]] ("snow woman"), might be considered examples of folktales, but even though some overlaps may exist, they are usually treated as another genre. The familiar forms of stories are embellished works of literature by [[gesaku]] writers, or retooled for the [[kabuki]] theater performance, in the case of the [[bakeneko]] or monstrous cat. The famous collection ''[[Kwaidan]]'' by [[Lafcadio Hearn]] also consists of original retellings. Yanagita published a collection, '{{nihongo |''Legends of Tōno'' |[[:ja:遠野物語|遠野物語]] |Tōno Monogatari}}' (1910), which featured a number of fantastical ''[[yōkai]]'' creatures such as [[Zashiki-warashi]] and [[kappa (folklore)|kappa]].
<!--
''namidabanashi'', sad stories; ''obakebanashi'', ghost stories; ''ongaeshibanashi'', stories of repaying kindness; ''tonchibanashi'', witty stories; ''waraibanashi'', funny stories; and ''yokubaribanashi'', stories of greed. (These are not standard or commonplace terms or classifications, except perhaps ''warai banashi''. ''Tonchi banashi'' is a term but perhaps not a category.)
-->

In the middle years of the 20th century storytellers would often travel from town to town telling these stories with special paper illustrations called [[kamishibai]].