A frog's unfilial piety - A frog's unfilial piety

...Frog croaking has been a point of interest for people since ancient times, and the noise that frogs make when they swarm to mate was thought to be a "frog battle." In the Edo period, however, it became popular to raise the Japanese frog, which has a particularly lovely voice, and enjoy its croaking. It was empirically known that tree frogs begin to croak when the air pressure drops, as in the old tale of "Rain Frog Filial Filial Frog," in which a riverside man's son, worried that his parents' graves would be washed away by a flood, turns into a frog and croaks. In Japan, where rice cultivation is the norm, rainwater was a major concern, so frogs that could forecast rain attracted people's attention. ...

*Some of the terminology that refers to "Frog's Unfilial Filial Piety" is listed below.

Source | Heibonsha World Encyclopedia 2nd Edition | Information

…カエルの鳴声は古くから人々に注意され，カエルが交尾のため多数群れ騒ぐのを〈蛙の合戦〉と考えたりしたが，江戸時代にはカエルの中でもとくに声がよいカジカガエルを飼育して，その鳴声を楽しむことが流行した。川端の親の墓が大水で流されまいかと心配した息子がカエルになって鳴く〈雨蛙不孝〉の昔話に見られるように，アマガエルが気圧の低下に伴って鳴き出すことは経験的に知られていた。水稲栽培を中心とする日本では，天水は重大な関心事だったので，降雨を予報するカエルは人々の注目を集めた。…

※「雨蛙不孝」について言及している用語解説の一部を掲載しています。

出典｜株式会社平凡社世界大百科事典 第２版について | 情報