The Motif of Human Marrying Supernatural Beings in L. Hearn’s Stories “Yuki Onna” and “The Tale of Urashima”

In this essay, I am going to examine the motif of human marrying supernatural beings in L. Hearn’s stories, the “Yuki Onna” and “The tale of Urashima” to be specific. I will also compare these two stories with stories from the book “The collection of strange tales” by Nguyen Du, a collection of Vietnamese legends that is similar to Kwaidan, and find the common characteristics of this motif.

A few things about “The collection of strange tales” (or “Truyền kì mạn lục” in Vietnamese): it is a book written by Nguyen Du in the 16th century. He collected folklores and rewrote them into his own version. The book consists of mythical stories of human interact with ghosts, spirits and fairies, and every story has a poem as well as the author’s comments. It is one of the most outstanding works in Vietnamese medieval literature.

In my opinion, the motif of human marrying supernatural beings could be divided into two themes.

First, I would like to look at “The tale of Urashima” by L. Hearn, where the motif of human marrying noble mythical creatures is described. In “The tale of Urashima”, Urashima saves a tortoise and gets a reward for his kindness, which is a trip to the Sea God’s Palace. He also gets married to the beautiful daughter of the Sea God and they live a very happy life together. I came across a similar story in “The collection of strange tales”, which is called “Tu Thuc and the Fairy Princess”. In this story, a young man called Tu Thuc saves a beautiful girl, who later revealed to be a Fairy Princess. Her mother, the Fairy Queen, welcomes him to live at the Fairy’s Palace inside a mountain. Then she marries her daughter to Tu Thuc, and the newly-wed couple lives happily for a while. And this is where both stories take a turn. Urashima asks the Sea God Princess if he could visit his parent. Tu Thuc also express his homesickness to his wife after one year staying at the Fairy Palace and asks to come back for his parents. In both stories, the wives express their sadness and heart-brokenness upon hearing their husbands’ requests, and they reluctantly send their husbands home with a keepsake. Urashima is bestowed a lacquered box by the Sea God’s daughter, while the Fairy Princess gives Tu Thuc a sealed envelope. However, when they return, everything has changed, and they find out that it has been hundreds of years since they left for the mythical world. However, their fates turn out slightly different. When Urashima opens the lacquered box, the weight of 400 years is returned to him at once, and he dies immediately. While with Tu Thuc, the envelope only contains a farewell letter that his wife has written, after that he wanders away and nobody sees him again.

We can see some similarities between the two main characters. They both do a chivalrous action which shows their kindness and altruism. Because of their benevolence, they are given the greatest gift that anyone could dream of: living forever in an extraordinary world with beautiful spouses. This motif of returning the favor can be seen from many stories, as the main characters receive an offering for their goodwill, in this case a chance to experience a life in a heavenly place.

The motif of a mortal man (woman) marrying noble mythical creatures like fairies and Gods is quite common in folktales. Many stories have a happy ending, as that person also becomes an immortal like their spouses. Among Vietnamese folktales there is one stories like that. It is “The Marvelous meeting at Bich Cau” about Tu Uyen, a talented student who marries a fairy called Giang Kieu. In the end, the couple ride two white cranes and fly to heaven, while the villagers build a temple to worship them. Perhaps the difference between Tu Uyen and Urashima/Tu Thuc is that Tu Uyen has no attachment to the moral world. He is a poor orphan with no relatives. His wife also convinces him that with his talent, it is better for him to leave this mundane short-lived world and join her as an immortal at heaven. For sacred beings like Gods and Fairies, they usually consider the mortal world an undesirable place and full of vanities. Urashima and Tu Thuc have a chance to live an everlasting happiness in a surreal world, however, their attachment with the real world holds them back. It seems to me that there is a trial for both men, if they can abandon the mortal world, they could join their spouses in the rank of immortals forever. However, both fail this trial, thus disqualifies them from returning to the magical world.

The magical world in both stories could be viewed as a utopia land that human always dreams about: an enchanted realm where people enjoy a carefree life and never age. Therefore, the motif of human marrying Gods or Fairies seems to portray mankind’s yearning for escaping from the harsh and undesirable reality.

Second, I would like to look at the motif of human marrying spiritual beings (spirits, ghosts). “Yuki Onna” is a story about a woodcutter called Minokichi whose wife is the snow spirit. Minokichi, without the knowledge of his wife is the Yuki Onna, takes her under his wing and later builds a family with her. In “The collection of strange tale”, the theme of human falling in love with spiritual beings can be seen in many stories. I have found one that somewhat resembles L. Hearn’s “Yuki Onna”. It is called “The wicked spirit at Xuong Giang”. The story tells the tale of a young official who helps a beautiful girl and let her stay in his house. They later fall in love and become husband and wife. However, little does he know his wife is a wicked spirit that has caused many malicious actions around the village.

The wives are described as beautiful, in an inhuman way. The villagers thinks that O-Yuki (Minokichi’s wife) “a wonderful person, by nature different from themselves” because “even after having become the mother of ten children, looked as young and fresh as on the day when she had first come to the village”, while the girl in “The wicked spirit at Xuong Giang” wears a silk dress as red as blood when people first see her, and even when she weeps she still looks stunning. They both have the virtues of a good wife. On the first encounter, both women show their shyness and modesty. In “The wicked spirit at Xuong Giang”, the wife is regarded as “well- mannered” and “eloquent”. Her husband’s friends and relatives also compliment on her demeanor. On the other hand, O- Yuki was a good daughter-in – law who receives praises from Minokichi’s mother. She is a devoting wife as they live a happy marriage with 10 children. But first and foremost, Yuki is a loving mother even though she can be a cold-blooded murderer, as her final words for her husband are: “but for those children asleep there, I would kill you this moment”, which show her affection and caring towards her own children.

In the end of both story, the evil side of the wives are finally revealed. O- Yuki reverts into Yuki Onna, “shrieked into his face”, and makes a threat to kill him before disappearing. In the other story, the husband falls very sick, and it is the wife who causes this illness to him. He is saved by a sorcerer who put an amulet on the wife, thus reveals her true form which is a skeleton.

Both O- Yuki and the woman in “The wicked spirit at Xuong Giang” are outsiders who come to the community without any information about their origin. In my opinion, perhaps through stories with the motif of human marrying spiritual alien beings, ancient people wanted to admonish young man not to marry foreign forces, or in other words people from different far- away land because they could not be trusted. Men should choose their spouses wisely and do not let the beauty blind them.

In conclusion, after looking at L. Hearn’s works and “The collection of strange tales”, the motif of human marrying supernatural beings could be divided into two concepts: marriage to noble mythical creatures (Gods/ Fairies) or marriage to spiritual beings (ghosts, spirits). In both cases, there are always lessons and advice hidden inside these motifs, and it is interesting to be able to interpret and decipher them.