Japanese Folk Tale

172 The Yanagita Guide to the Japanese Folk Tale
brother to him. The younger brother killed a wild boar in the hills
one day, but he told his friend that he had killed a man by mistake
and asked him to cover the fact up. Even though they were like
brothers, the friend felt that he was an outsider and did not want
to be involved. The older brother was surprised, but went to the
mountains immediately. The neighbor could not come around again
because he thought he knew the real state of affairs. The two
brothers were reconciled and lived together with understanding
after that.
This is a borrowing from stories about brothers.
It does not seem to be an importation, but it may have been
changed.
One wonders if the story about the bride who made it seem
that she was eating a corpse when she was really eating mochi
came at a later date. It is found in T6hoku, too. See Shima II 470.
167. The Wife who was a Thief
The wife was a robber chief and every day she ordered her
husband to go out and steal. If her husband stole a cow, she would rub
oil on its horns and burn them to change their shape and keep the
officers from catching them. Her constant orders to her husband to
steal made him decide one day to give her some trouble. He went to
the graveyard and dug up a corpse and brought it home. His wife stuck
it into a box and set it on the porch. Two other thieves came by.
Presently, she said she had let something slip her mind and had left a
treasure in a box on the porch. She said she would have to hurry to
get it and rushed out of the house. At the mention of treasure, the
two thieves ran around the house the other way to get there first.
One of them swung the box onto his shoulders and started to run. The
other happened to see there was a body in the box. He yelled, "It's a
man, it's a man!" The one with the box shouted, "I'm running away
because it is a man!" And they ran off with all speed.
Kagoshima, Kikaijima
Tales like the one about clever Yasohachi disposing of a corpse
probably came from this, too. Also tales about extorting the wine
merchant.
Aomori, Hachinohe: MK II 10 19, "The wife who was a thief" (Nusubito
ny6b6). A man was sent three times to steal by his mother-in-law.
The third time he put powder and rouge on a female corpse he
stole and set it up by the door of the wine shop. He extorted
money from the owner, who happened to knock it over.
Iwate, Kesen-gun: Kikimimi 132 134, "The bad widow" (Warui yamome)