Global InformationShippeitaro information
| Shippeitaro | |
|---|---|
 "Schippeitaro is a strong and beautiful dog". —from Mrs. T. H. James's Schippeitaro (1888), illustrated by Suzuki Sōsaburō[1] [recté Suzuki Sōtarō] aka Suzuki Kason. | |
| Folk tale | |
| Name | Shippeitaro |
| Country | Japan |
| Region | Asia |
Shippeitaro[2] or Shippei Taro[3] (German spelling: Schippeitaro;[4][5] Japanese: しっぺい太郎 or 竹篦太郎[1][6]) is the name of a helper dog in the Japanese fairy tale[7] by the same name.
Although the name Shippeitaro has been written 竹篦太郎 suggesting a connection to a bamboo hitting stick in Buddhist religion, it has been asserted to be a corruption of Shippūtarō (疾風太郎) meaning "swift wind Tarō", and the same characters can also be read Hayatetarō, thus explaining variant names such as Hayatarō "swift Tarō".
Translations include "Schippeitaro" in Andrew Lang's Violet Fairy Book (1901), taken from a German copy, and Mrs. James's "Schippeitaro" (1888), which share the same plotline: The mountain spirit and its minions (in the guise of cats in this version) demand a yearly human sacrifice of a maiden from the local village. A young warrior overhears the spirits hinting that their would-be bane was "Shippeitaro", which turns out to be a dog. This dog is substituted for the maiden to be placed inside the sacrificial container, and when the spirits arrive, the warrior and dog attack the cats and vanquish them.
The evil spirits appear as monkeys in most instances of the tale, as in the version of "Shippei Taro" given in Keigo Seki's anthology (translated into English 1963). In fact, this folktale is classified as "Destroying the Monkey Demon" (Sarugami taiji) tale type by Japanese folklorists.
Monkey God tales preserved in the medieval anthologies Konjaku Monogatarishū and Uji Shūi Monogatari have been suggested as being the original sources of the orally disseminated versions.
There is also the theory that the story was invented after the historical occasion of the Yanahime (Mitsuke Tenjin) shrine in Iwata, Shizuoka (Tōtōmi Province) sending volumes of sutras to the Kōzen-ji temple, Nagano Prefecture (Shinano Province) in 1793. The dog is called Hayatarō or Heibōtarō in the versions at the temple and in folktales of the vicinity. But the dog name has been standardized as Shippeitarō in the region of the shrine.
- ^ a b Cite error: The named reference
schippeitaro-colophonswas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ James (1888), Preface
- ^ Seki & Adams (1963), p. 33
- ^ James (1888)
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
langwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Cite error: The named reference
kobayashi-027was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Various examples attested in Miyagi, Yamagata, Fukushima, Niigata, Gunma, Shizuoka, and Shimane Prefectures. Kobayashi (2012), Table 1.