Mirunanozashiki - Mirunanozashiki

A folktale. A tale of fate with the theme of punishment for breaking taboos. A travelling man finds a house in the fields and is given a place to stay. There is a young woman. The woman tells the man not to look in one of the four storehouses and asks him to watch the house while she is away. When the man opens the three storehouses, he sees summer, autumn and winter scenery. When he breaks the ban and opens the fourth storehouse, he finds a nightingale singing on a plum tree. The woman comes and scolds him for breaking his promise, then turns into a nightingale and flies away. The house and storehouse are gone. The man is in the field. There are many European folktales about misfortunes that come from opening a room that you were told not to open, such as "Mary's Child" in the Brothers Grimm's collection of fairy tales, but this story is unique in that it involves a visit to the nightingale's house. The punishment for breaking the commandment does not come directly to the man himself, but to the woman he was with. There are also examples that say that this house is called the nightingale's palace, a place that is difficult for humans to enter. The man had been chosen and had come to the nightingale's house. The story in which the woman's 3,000 years of training have been wasted and she can no longer enter the human world probably assumes that if the taboo had been obeyed, the nightingale would have become human, married the man, and lived happily ever after. The man's actions are the cause of his estrangement from the wife, just as in "The Crane Wife's" breaking the precepts by peeking into the weaving shop. There is also a "Tongue-Cut Sparrow" type story in which a good old man helps the nightingale and is invited into her house, where he returns with a treasure, only for the bad old woman next door to try and imitate him and fail.

In the Konjaku Monogatarishu, there is a story about a monk who always worshiped the tall tree of the god of the Inui horn in Higashisanjo, Kyoto, and was guided by a man and invited to the palace on the tree. When he broke the commandment not to peek and looked around, he was able to see the monthly events. The end of the story is missing, but it may have been one of the stories similar to "The Room Where You Can't See."

[Yo Kojima]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

昔話。禁忌を破った報いを主題にした運命譚(たん)の一つ。旅の男が野中で家をみつけて泊めてもらう。若い女が1人いる。女は、四つの蔵のうち一つは見てはいけないといって、男に留守番を頼む。男が三つの蔵を開けてみると、夏、秋、冬の景色がある。禁止を犯して四つ目の蔵を開けると、梅にウグイスが止まって鳴いている。女主人がきて、約束を破ったことを責め、ウグイスになって飛び去る。家も蔵もなくなっている。男は野原にいる。開けるなといわれた部屋を開けたために不幸になるという昔話は、グリム兄弟の昔話集の「マリアの子供」など、ヨーロッパにも多いが、この昔話は、ウグイスの家を訪問するところに特色がある。破戒の報いも、直接は男自身ではなく、相手の女に及んでいる。この家は、ウグイスの内裏(だいり)といって、人間にはなかなか行けない所であると伝える例もある。男は選ばれて、そのウグイスの家にきていたことになる。女が3000年もかかって積んだ行(ぎょう)がむだになり、もう人間界にはいられないという話には、禁忌を守れば、ウグイスは人間になり、男と結婚して幸せになるはずであったという前提があったのであろう。男の行動は、「鶴(つる)女房」の機屋(はたや)をのぞく破戒の趣向と同じく、女房との絶縁の原因になっている。善い爺(じじ)がウグイスを助けて家に招かれ、宝物をもらって帰ると、隣の悪い婆(ばば)がまねて失敗するという、「舌切り雀(すずめ)」型の話もある。

　『今昔(こんじゃく)物語集』に、京都の東三条の戌亥(いぬい)の角の神の高木をいつも拝んでいた僧が、男に案内され、その木の上の宮殿に招かれる話がある。のぞくなという戒めを破って周囲を見ると、月々の行事のようすが見えたとある。話の末尾は欠落しているが、「見るなの座敷」の類話の一つであったかもしれない。

［小島瓔］

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