All about history book of myths and legends. ( PDFDrive )

EAST ASIA

KINTARO’S BIRTH

Kintoki was a warrior from Kyoto who fell

in love with a beautiful young woman and

married her. Soon afterwards, he became

involved in a court intrigue and was banished to the forest,

because of some malicious gossip that had been spread about

him by certain courtiers jealous of his power. He died soon after

arriving in the forest, where his wife give birth to a son.

When the boy was born, his mother named him Kintaro.

Even as a baby, Kintaro was prodigiously strong; by the time he

was eight years old he could cut down trees as easily and as

well as the most experienced of woodcutters, and he came to

be valued highly by the people of the forest. Once Kintaro

became accustomed to the ways of the wild, he protected his

mother and the other forest dwellers from many monsters,

including terrifying beasts such as the giant earth-spider.

Killing the giant spider

The Tsuchigumo (earth-spider)

slain by Kintaro features as

a monster in several other

Japanese legends. The spider

generally poisoned its victims

to death or trapped them in

a vast, net-like web.

Yama Uba and Kintaro

In several Japanese legends,

Yama Uba is a spirit of the forest

who looks like a human and

lives in an isolated hut. In some

versions of the Kintaro story,

she takes the form of a young

woman and is the hero’s mother.

Kintaro's axe

Kintaro’s greatest possession

was his axe. It was both a tool

for cutting down trees and a

weapon that he could use to

defeat the monsters of the forest.

Kintaro

One of the most popular stories in Japanese

mythology is not about the many great

gods of the Shinto hierarchy, but about a

superhero called Kintaro (Golden Boy), who

possessed superhuman strength even as

a child, and grew up to become a heroic

samurai. Although Kintaro’s career as a

samurai may have been based on a real-life

figure – the great warrior Sakata no Kintoki –

he is essentially a figure of legend. Brought

up in the forest, he became both a friend

to the animals and a defender of the forest

people against monsters when still young.

Later on, in his exploits as a samurai, he

protected Japan from several

even deadlier foes.

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