Golden Hatchet

A folktale. It is one of the stories of visiting foreign lands, with the theme of getting treasure from the Dragon Palace. A woodcutter drops his hatchet over a deep pool and goes underwater to search for it. There is a palace, and a nobleman brings a gold hatchet and a silver hatchet, but the woodcutter refuses it as it is not his. Next, a humble woodcutter brings his hatchet. When he accepts it, the man says he is an honest old man and gives him a gold hatchet and a silver hatchet as well. He is told not to tell anyone about the palace, and when he returns home, the three-year anniversary of his death is being celebrated. When he is asked where he has been, he mentions the deep pool, and a heavy rain starts, and the woodcutter is swept over the pool and dies. This story also contains elements of the "golden axe" and the influence of Aesop's Fables cannot be denied, but stories of going to search for a dropped hatchet and getting treasure from the Dragon Palace have become legends in various places, so the history of this type of folktale is by no means new. There is also a "kikimimi" type story in which someone was given a treasure called "suzume no sorane" (sparrow's sky sound), which allows one to understand the language of small birds when placed against one's ear in the Dragon Palace, and there is even a temple that still exists that enshrines the Ryuto Kannon Bodhisattva, which was found in a treasure box as a souvenir from the Dragon Palace. There are many examples that are hard to believe were created after the Meiji period. This old tale may have grown into a legend from long ago, based on the belief that the god of water abhors iron. There are also several stories in which the person dropped his sword.

The Sami people of Northern Europe have only one example that is very similar to the Japanese story. It is a story about a woodcutter who is given a silver axe by the water spirit Nausera (the Water Man) to replace the one he lost. This suggests that there was room for a story about a man who loses his axe and receives a treasured axe from the water god to develop separately from Aesop's Fables.

[Yo Kojima]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

昔話。竜宮から宝物をもらってくることを主題にした異郷訪問譚(たん)の一つ。木こりが淵(ふち)に鉈を落とし、水中に捜しに行く。御殿があり、りっぱな人が金の鉈と銀の鉈を持ってくるが、自分のものではないと受け取らない。次に粗末な木こりの鉈を持ってくる。それを受け取ると、正直な爺(じじ)だと金の鉈と銀の鉈もくれる。御殿のことは他言するなといわれて家に帰ると、家では三年忌をしている。どこに行っていたかと問われ、つい淵の話をすると、大雨になって木こりは淵に流されて死ぬ。この話には「金の斧(おの)・銀の斧」の要素もあり、『イソップ寓話(ぐうわ)集』の影響も否定できないが、落とした鉈を捜しに行き、竜宮から宝物をもらってくる話が各地で伝説化しており、この形式の昔話の歴史はけっして新しくない。竜宮で耳に当てると小鳥のことばがわかる「雀(すずめ)の空音(そらね)」という宝物をもらったという「聴耳(ききみみ)」型の話もあり、竜宮の土産(みやげ)の玉手箱に入っていた竜灯観音を本尊としているという寺院も現存する。明治以後の成立とは考えにくい例も少なくない。この昔話は、水の神は鉄を忌むという信仰を基盤に、かなり古くから伝説として成長していたのかもしれない。刀を落としたという話もいくつかある。

　北ヨーロッパのサーミ人には、一つだけだが、日本の話によく似た例がある。木こりが、なくした斧のかわりに銀の斧を水の精霊ナウセラ（水の男）から贈られるという話である。『イソップ寓話集』とは別個に、斧をなくした男が水の神から宝物の斧をもらう話が生育する余地があったことを推測させる。

［小島瓔］

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