page_title: Urashima Tarō
section_title: Tango Fudoki
hierarchical_section_title: Urashima Tarō / Tango Fudoki
caption_attribution_description: English: Mizuenoe no Urashima riding a turtle with flowing tail (mino game). This Urashima has a fishing pole and is contemporary Edo Period garb and has mage hair, but Mizuenoe no Urashima appears in a story in Tango no ki Fudoki dating to 713/715 A.D. He is a precursor of Urashima Taro. Hayashi says this appears more like a river turtle than oceanic.[1]
context_page_description: Urashima Tarō is the protagonist of a Japanese fairy tale, who in a typical modern version is a fisherman rewarded for rescuing a turtle, and carried on its back to the Dragon Palace beneath the sea. There he is entertained by the princess Otohime as a reward. He spends what he believes to be several days with the princess, but when he returns to his home village, he discovers he has been gone for at least 100 years. When he opens the forbidden jewelled box, given to him by Otohime on his departure, he turns into an old man.
  The tale originates from the legend of Urashimako recorded in various pieces of literature dating to the 8th century, such as the Fudoki for Tango Province, Nihon Shoki, and the Man'yōshū.
  During the Muromachi to Edo periods, versions of Urashima Tarō appeared in storybook form called the Otogizōshi, made into finely painted picture scrolls and picture books or mass-printed copies. These texts vary considerably, and in some, the story ends with Urashima Tarō transforming into a crane.
  Some iconic elements in the modern version are relatively recent.
context_section_description: In this version, the protagonist is referred to as "Urashimako of Mizunoe" (or "Urashimako of Tsutsukawa in Yosa-gun".
  Urashimako catches a five-coloured turtle and keeps it in his boat, and during his sleep, the creature transforms into a beautiful woman. She identifies herself as someone from the household of immortals, and proposes to take him to the place of immortals, which may be Horaisan (Mount Penglai) or "Tokoyo-no-kuni" ("Timeless Land" or "Land of Eternity").
  They are greeted by first seven, then eight children, who represent the constellations of Pleiades and Taurus (or more precisely the Hyades cluster) who address him as the "husband of Kame Hime (Princess Turtle)". The remainder is mostly the same as the typical tale.
  After three years, the man develops a longing for his parents and homeland. The princess is saddened, but imparts him with a jeweled comb box (tamakushige, 玉匣), forbidding him to open it if he wished ever to return to her. He returns and finds no trace of his home or family, except that he is remembered as a man who disappeared long ago, and would be over three hundred years old if still alive. Forgetting the promise, he opens the box, whereupon a beautiful figure like a fragrant orchid is carried away to the heavens with the clouds, and he realizes he can never meet the princess again. Still, the couple are somehow (supernaturally) able to exchange poems. These poems are recorded in phonetic man'yōgana.
caption: Mizuenoe no Urashima riding a turtle with flowing tail (mino game[73]). Depiction of him riding a turtle appeared quite late, in the early 18th century.[36]
  —Ogata Gekkō, Gekkō zuihitsu (1887).[74]
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