The Snail Millionaire

A folk tale. One of the extraordinary birth stories that focuses on the adventures of people born in the form of small animals. A childless couple prays to the gods for a child and is given a snail. When the snail reaches adulthood, he works as a horse driver. He becomes friends with a rich man and falls in love with the rich man's daughter. He goes to the rich man's house with a bag of rice and stays there. He entrusts the bag of rice to the rich man, saying that it is important to him. The rich man promises to give her anything she likes if she loses the rice he has entrusted to him. In the middle of the night, the snail takes the rice out of the bag and puts some raw rice around the girl's mouth. The next morning, the snail complains that the bag of rice is gone. There is rice in the girl's mouth, so the rich man gives her to the snail as promised. When the girl goes to a festival with the snail, the snail is pecked by a crow and falls into a rice field. When the girl starts crying, the snail appears in the form of a fine man. The wedding is redone, and the young snail becomes prosperous and wealthy. There are many similar stories with frogs as the main characters.

The distinctive feature of this story is that a small thing suddenly transforms into a fine young man and marries happily, and this story format is common to "Issun-boshi" from old tales and Otogi-zoshi. In "Tanakuchoja," there is an example in which the creature becomes a full-fledged young man after being hit with a magic mallet, and there is a general interplay between "Tanakuchoja" and "Issun-boshi" that makes it seem more than just a simple mixture. In East Asia, such as Korea, China, and Burma (Myanmar), there are similar stories in which the protagonists become other snail shells, frogs, or snakes. They usually involve the transformation of an animal by shedding its shell or skin and becoming a human. The reason that snail shells have shells and frogs and snakes metamorphose and shed their skin is probably why these animals are the protagonists of this old tale. In Japan, there is a belief that snails are messengers of the water god, and this old tale seems to have been created with such religious ideas as its background.

[Yo Kojima]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

昔話。小さな動物の姿で生まれた人の冒険を主題にする異常誕生譚(たんじょうたん)の一つ。子供のいない夫婦が神に子授けを願い、タニシを授かる。タニシは一人前の年齢になると、馬を引いて働く。長者と親しくなり、長者の娘を見そめる。米を袋に入れて持ち、長者の家に行き泊まる。米の袋をたいせつなものであるといって、長者に預ける。長者は、預かった米をなくしたら、なんでも好きなものをやると約束する。夜中に、タニシはその袋から米を出し、娘の口の周りに生米をかんだものをつけておく。翌朝タニシは、米の袋がなくなっていると騒ぐ。娘の口に米がついているので、約束どおり、長者はタニシに娘をやる。娘がタニシといっしょに祭りに行くとき、タニシがカラスにつつかれて田の中に落ちる。娘が泣いていると、タニシはりっぱな男の姿になって現れる。婚礼をやり直し、タニシの若者は栄え、長者になる。主人公をカエルにした類話も多い。

　小さなものが突然にりっぱな若者に変身し、幸福な結婚をするところに特色があるが、そうした物語形式は昔話や御伽草子(おとぎぞうし)の「一寸法師」と共通している。「田螺長者」には、打ち出の小槌(こづち)で打つと一人前の若者になったという例もあり、「田螺長者」と「一寸法師」とは、ただの混交とは思えない全体的な交錯がある。朝鮮、中国、ビルマ（ミャンマー）など東アジアにも、主人公が他の巻き貝類やカエルやヘビになった類話がある。動物の殻や皮を脱ぎ捨てて人間になるという変身の趣向が語られているのが普通である。巻き貝が殻をもち、カエルやヘビが変態・脱皮をすることが、これらの動物がこの昔話の主人公になっている理由であろう。日本ではタニシを水神の使者とする信仰があり、この昔話は、そうした宗教的観念を背景にして成り立っていたらしい。

［小島瓔］

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