Week 7 Story: Princess Hase and her brother

Princess Hase had gotten used to the cruel treatment of her stepmother. Ever since her stepmother married her father she was jealous of everything that Princess Hase did. Princess Hase’s father, instructors, and servants never believed any of the cruel stories the stepmother would make up. The only time Princess Hase because upset with one of her stepmothers lies is when she tried to make Prince Toyonari despise her.

Prince Toyonari was Princess Hase younger brother, the child of her father and evil stepmother. The stepmother loathed that her son enjoyed playing with his older sister and even looked up to her. She tried to keep the two from playing together by scheduling their instructions at different times but it seemed the two always found a way to have time together. The stepmother knew she was going to have to create a reason for the young Prince Toyonari to not want to play with his sister.

The next morning a message came from the Emperor inviting the entire family to a celebration at the palace. At first, the stepmother was annoyed by the invitation, she knew that it would just be another opportunity for Princess Hase to impress everyone while her son was ignored. “Another celebration at the palace where that wrenched girl can still all of the favor away from my poor Toyonari,” sneered the stepmother.

As the words were coming out of her mouth the stepmother began to calculate a plan. “While I cannot stop Princess Hase from impressing everyone at the celebration, maybe I can help my son realize she is not as kind and sweet towards him as he thinks,” connived the stepmother. Off she went to find her husband to tell him about the invite and put her plan into motion.

The stepmother informed her husband of the invite but instead of telling him it was for the entire family, she told him that they were only allowed two places for the celebration. The husband knowing, he would need to take his wife said, “Then it will just be the two of us to attend the celebration. The kids will get to enjoy each other’s company for the night,” replied her husband.

Attempting to sound sincere the stepmother objected, “Oh why I would love to attend the celebration what if you took Princess Hase. She enjoys the Emperor and you two can have some father-daughter time together. It would be nice to have an evening with my son alone, he is so busy with his studies we don’t spend much time together.” The husband could tell that there was something suspicious about his wife encouraging him to take his daughter but he really did enjoy her time the best so he accepted the offer then went off to inform Princess Hase.

The night of the celebration while the father and Princess Hase were busy enjoying themselves they did not know that the stepmother was filling her son’s head with lies. The stepmother told Prince Toyonari, “I am sorry you must spend the evening with your mother but your sister stole your invitation to go the Emperor celebration. The invitations were only for the males of the household but your father preferred to take Princess Hase. So, he asked the Emperor if he could substitute her for you.”

The kind Prince Toyonari tried to assure himself by telling his stepmother, “I am sure Princess Hase had no idea that the invitation was meant for me. She would never hurt me on purpose.” The stepmother got a crooked smile as responded, “But she was with me when we received the invitation. She knew that it was meant for you but only cared about herself and getting to see the Emperor. I am so sorry you had to learn that she is a very vindictive young girl who wants only to advance herself. But I will always be here to look after you.”

After hearing this the young Prince Toyonari wanted to be alone and went to his room. When his sister returned home, he would not allow her into his room. He claimed to be sick. For the next three days, Prince Toyonari avoided his sister. Princess Hase could not understand why her brother was ignoring her so she sent one of her servants to inquire what was wrong. When her servant came back explaining what had happened while she was away at the celebration, Princess Hase burst into tears. If only she could talk to her brother to explain the truth, this time her stepmother had gone too far.

That night at dinner Princess Hase brought presents to the dinner table. She handed one present to her stepmother and one to her brother. She then turned to her father, “Would you like to explain what we brought back for them from the Emperor celebration?”

Happily, the father explained, “Since the two of you did not want to come to the celebration, Princess Hase wanted to get these gifts to enjoy from the Emperor. For you my wife, she picked out a jade necklace. And for you my son, she picked out an ivory handled samurai sword. Princess Hase thought you needed a new sword to further your instructions.”

Confused Prince Toyonari asked, “I wanted to come to the celebration but my place was taken by Princess Hase. Wasn’t it?” “Of course, not son, we were all invited to the celebration but your mother wanted to spend time with you so she suggested I just take Princess Hase with me. I would have loved to have had both of my children with me,” explained the father. Realizing what his mother had done Prince Toyonari learned that he could no longer trust his mother. He apologized to Princess Hase.

The Evil Stepmother from Cinderella. Source: Flickr by IzaKosti

Author’s Notes: This story is based on the reading of the Japanese Fairy Tales retold by Yei Theodora Ozaki. In the tale of The Story of Princess Hase, we meet an evil stepmother who loathes her stepdaughter Princess Hase. The reason I enjoyed this story so much is that it reminded me of Cinderella, but with slight difference. At one point the stepmother attempts to poison Princess Hase but fails because she gets the drinks mixed up. The stepmother ends up killing her own son instead. Until that point in the story the two children enjoyed playing together which the stepmother did not like, so I changed the story to have the brother live. This would, of course, make the stepmother mad and try to come up with a plan to get her son to hate the Princess as much as she does. Since Prince Toyonari is young he believes his mother at first and is hurt, but the father reveals the truth. The reason I have the father reveal the truth is that women in Japanese culture are not supposed to speak against their elders so the stepmother could have made her stop but the stepmother would not be able to object to her husband. I hope you have enjoyed my story and would love to hear feedback and ideas!

Reading Notes: Reading B: Japanese Fairy Tales

For the second part of the Japanese Fairy Tales retold by Yei Theodora Ozaki, the reading also consisted of only three longer tales. The first two tales were about monsters. In the first tale, The Goblin of Adachigahara, a goblin disguised as an elderly woman almost eats a man who narrowly makes an escape. In the second tale, The Ogre of Rashomon, a great ogre eats up people who come by his gate at night so a brave night goes off and fights him. Long story short the ogre loses his arm when they battle then years later turns into an old lady to trick the night so he can get his arm back. One thing both of these stories have in common is they use old women to shapeshift into and trick whomever they are trying to get. This could be used for a tale about another monster that Kintaro the samurai warrior would need to defeat to earn the title “greatest hero of his country”. The third tale was the entire reason I choose this unit, The Story of Princess Hase. The tale is very close to the tale of Cinderella so I was curious what similarities and difference the two would have. Both tales have a young girl whose mother dies and the father then marries an evil woman who hates the little girl even though she is good. But what if the little girl was not as sweet as the father and servants believed, then would it be okay that the stepmother is mean to her? A difference between the two is that in the Japanese version, the evil stepmother has a son and when she attempts to poison the Princess ends up killing her son. But what if the son lived, would he become hateful to the Princess like his mother or would be secret friends with the Princess?

The 2015 live action Disney Cinderella. Source: Flickr by BagoGames

Reading Notes: Reading A: Japanese Fairy Tales

For this week’s reading, I chose the Japanese Fairy Tales retold by Yei Theodora Ozaki. The reading consisted of only three longer tales, instead of the usual eight to ten in the previous readings. In the first tale, My Lord Bag of Rice, the author does a great job describing the different scenes so that the reader can picture vivid images of the scenes on their own. The description of the dragon and the underwater palace are very detailed. I need to start adding better descriptions of the places my stories take place. In the second story, The Adventures of Kintaro, The Golden Boy, we learn about a strong young boy becoming a samurai. For Kintaro to become a samurai he goes to train in the Capital. The story only talks about Kintaro defeating one monster to prove that he is the “greatest hero of his country”. In most heroic stories the hero has to prove that he is the strongest by defeating multiple monsters. Stories could be added in of the different adventure that Kintaro has to go through in his beginning training as a samurai. And the third tale, The Story of the Man Who Did Not Wish to Die, was a classic tale about a man wanting to find the fountain of youth or the “Elixir of Life”. In the end, the man chooses not to look for it but instead live his life well but, what if he could find what was needed to have everlasting life. This storyline as many possibilities of going into the search for the fountain of youth.

A samurai warrior with his sword. Source: Wikipedia