Old-World Japan
Legends of the Land of the
Gods 
Re-told by Frank
Rinder 
With Illustrations
by T. H. Robinson
“The spirit of Japan is as the
fragrance of the wild cherry-blossom
in the dawn of the
rising sun”
London: George Allen
156 Charing Cross Road
1895
Old-World Japan
Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.
At the Ballantyne Press
Preface
HISTORY and mythology, fact and fable,are closely interwoven in the texture ofJapanese life and thought; indeed, it iswithin relatively recent years only thatexact comparative criticism has been able,with some degree of accuracy, to divide theone from the other. The accounts of theGod-period contained in the Kojiki andthe Nihongi—“Records of Ancient Matters”compiled in the eighth century of theChristian era—profess to outline the eventsof the vast cycles of years from the timeof Ame-no-mi-naka-nushi-no-kami’s birth inthe Plain of High Heaven, “when theearth, young and like unto floating oil,drifted about medusa-like,” to the death ofthe Empress Suiko, A.D. 628.
[Pg vi]The first six tales in this little volumeare founded on some of the most significantand picturesque incidents of this God-period.The opening legend gives a brief relationof the birth of several of the great Shintodeities, of the creation of Japan and of theworld, of the Orpheus-like descent of Izanagito Hades, and of his subsequent fight with thedemons.
That Chinese civilisation has exercised aprofound influence on that of Japan, cannotbe doubted. A scholar of repute has indicatedthat evidence of this is to be found evenin writings so early as the Kojiki and theNihongi. To give a single instance only:the curved jewels, of which the remarkablenecklace of Ama-terasu was made, have neverbeen found in Japan, whereas the stones arenot uncommon in China.
This is not the place critically to considerthe wealth of myth, legend, fable, andfolk-tale to be found scattered throughoutJapanese literature, and representedin Japanese art: suffice it to say, thatto the student and the lover of primitive[Pg vii]romance, there are here vast fields practicallyunexplored.
The tales contained in this volume havebeen selected with a view rather to theirbeauty and charm of incident and colour,than with the aim to represent adequatelythe many-sided subject of Japanese lore.Moreover, those only have been chosenwhich are not familiar to the English-readingpublic. Several of the classic namesof Japan have been interpolated in the text.It remains to say that, in order n