Omusubi Kororin “Rolling Riceball”

Title: Omusubi Kororin “Rolling Riceball”

General Information about Item:

  • Genre and Sub Genre: Educational Folktale
  • Language: English
  • Country where item is from: Japan

Informant Data:

  • Asa Toyoda was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1997 and is currently at Dartmouth College. She is Japanese and studies economics and biology. 
    • Region: Tokyo/Japan
    • Age: 19
    • Gender: Female
    • Background: Born in Tokyo, Japan 

Contextual Data:

  • Social/Cultural Context: Asa learned this folktale when she was 6 years old. She remembers her parents telling this to her on many occasions in order to teach her good values. Asa was alone in her interview at Dartmouth College.

Item:

  • One day an elderly man was eating a lunch, that his wife had prepared for him, at the top of a hill. In the lunch were some rice balls. The man accidentally dropped one of these rice balls and it rolled down the hill and fell into a hole. The man goes to see where his rice ball has gone and when he arrives at the hole he hears singing from inside. The man tries to get closer to the hole in order to better hear the singing and ends up falling in. Once in the hole the man sees many mice all around him that begin to thank him for the food that he has just provided. The mice are in such gratitude that they prepare the man a feast. Then, as the man is about to leave, the mice offer him a souvenir. They say “you can either choose the small box or the large box” and the man chooses the small box. The man then goes back to his house, opens the box, and discovers that there are many treasures inside (money, gold, jewelry). Being a very benevolent man he spreads the wealth around the whole town.

    Now the man next door hears this story and becomes jealous. He decides to imitate the actions of the old man so he brings rice balls to the same hill, shoves the rice balls down the same hole, and crawls into this hole. The mice are again thankful for the rice and and make the man a feast. At the end of the feast the man asks for his souvenirs and imitates a cat in order to scare the mice. The mice become furious and start to attack the man relentlessly. The man becomes overtaken by the mice and never makes it out of the hole.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Informant’s Comments:

  • The informant mentioned that many parents in Japanese culture would teach their kids lessons in the form of folktales.

Collector’s Comments:

  • Lesson:
    • The greedy man never prospers

    Analysis: 

    • Educational Folktale teaching kids not to be greedy

    Applicable Laws of Folk Narrative

    • Law of Twins
    • Law of Two to a Scene
    • Concentration on Main Character

    Dramatis Personae

    • Hero: Elderly Man
    • Donor: Mice
    • Villain: Neighbor

    Similarities with Russian Folktales

    -This folktale has dramatis personae that resemble that of Russian folktales. This tale follows some of Olrik’s functions that we have discussed for Russian folktales, and the aim of this tale is to teach kids a lesson. In some of folktales that we have read there is an underlying lesson trying to teach children positive values.

    Differences with Russian Folktales

    – One reason this Japanese folktale is different from Russian folktales is due to the fact that the story ends with someone being trapped. There is not the usual wedding/celebration that we see with Russian folktales. Another difference has to do with the dramatic personae that are seen in the tale. We only see three and the villain isn’t a true villain as seen in Russian tales. The villain in this story is more of a bad example of character.

Collector’s Name: Parker Johnson

Tags/Keywords:

  • Japanese Folktale, Educational Tale, Omusubi Kororin, Rolling Riceball

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