Global InformationUchide no kozuchi information
Uchide no kozuchi (打ち出の小槌, lit. "Tap-Appear Mallet") is a legendary Japanese "magic hammer"[1] which can "tap out" anything wished for.[2] This treasure is also rendered into English as "magic wishing mallet",[2] "lucky hammer",[3] "the mallet of fortune", etc.
In popular belief, the magic wooden hammer is a standard item held in the hand of the iconic deity Daikoku-ten,[2] who is often represented as figurines, statues, netsukes, and in architecture.
It is also a stock item in popular tales. In Issun-bōshi ("One-Inch Boy"), the hero gains the mallet defeating an ogre (oni) and amass wealth, while in modern embellishments, he even transforms himself into full adult-size. In Momotarō ("Peach Boy"), the mallet is captured from the ogres in Onigashima, alongside the kakure mino (raincoat of invisibility) and kakurekasa (hat of invisibility)[3][a]
The notion that ogres possessed this prized mallet dates much earlier than the tales, which are part of the otogi-zōshi collection from the Muromachi period. It can be traced at as far back as The Tale of Heike (ca. 1240), or, if the instance of use in the work has any historicity, datable to before ca. 1118.
In folkloristics, the uchide no kozuchi is catalogued in the Stith Thompson motif index scheme under "magic hammer, D 1470.1.46".[1]
- ^ a b Ikeda, Hiroko (1952). "A Type and Motif-Index of Japanese Folk-Literature". FF Communications. 209: 148.
- ^ a b c Sargent, G.W. (1969) [1959], The Japanese Family Storehouse, CUP Archive, pp. 85, 199, note 4
- ^ a b Antoni, Klaus (1991). "Momotarō (The Peach Boy) and the Spirit of Japan: Concerning the Function of a Fairy Tale in Japanese Nationalism of the Early Shōwa Age". Asian Folklore Studies. 50 (1): 155–188. doi:10.2307/1178189. JSTOR 1178189. S2CID 165857235.
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