Japanese Folk Tale

174 The Yanagita Guide to the Japanese Folk Tale
Aomori, Shimokita-gun, Kuriyama: MK II 10 19, "The wife who was a
thief" (Nusubito nyobo). Kobukuro killed an old woman and used
her corpse to get money from a wine merchant. The ending is like
"Yakushi in the straw bag." It says definitely here that the horse
hide talked.
The story without the deception is like "The old man who
swallowed a bird."
Iwate: Kogane 66, "Carrying a corpse around" (Shinin 0 mochimawatta
hanashi).
Kamihei-gun: Roo 233, "Clever Yasohachi" (Funbetsu Yasohachi);
Kikimimi 119, "Bakuro Yasohachi."
Akita, Kakunodate: Dai-ni 84, "The five Tarosaku" (Gonin Tarosaku).
Niigata, Minamikanbara-gun: Kamuhara 141, "The clever man" (Chie ari
dono). Example. More than half of this is like "Clever Yasohachi."
Hiroshima, Takata-gun: (no source) "Clever Gihei" (Funbetsu Gihei).
Kagoshima: Koshiki 183, "Clever Magozaemon" (Funbetsu Magozaemon).
Further reference:
Chosen mintan shu 314. Punishing a wife who had a lover.
Mukashibanashi kenkyu II 6 17. In "Yue minkan setsuwa ron," by
Ai ta Y oshi, p. 12.
Huet 10.
170. Yakushi in the Straw Bag
A boy who was a liar and undutiful toward his parents went with
his father to the mountains to cut trees. He wanted to go home, so he
began to cry and say his stomach hurt. His father told him to go home
and go to bed. When he reached home, he told his mother his father
had been hurt badly and had died. He told her to hurry and become a
nun to say prayers for his soul. She cut her hair and was saying prayers
at the family altar when the father returned with a big load of
wood on his back. He declared that such an undutiful son should be
wrapped in a straw bag and thrown into the river. They promptly made
a big straw bag. They put their son into it and set him out under the
eaves. A blind masseur came along and stumbled on the bag. The son
cried out sharply and asked who it was. The man said he was blind and
asked to be forgiven. The son told him that he had been blind, too, but
after he got into the bag, he could see. He said the blind man could be
cured, too, and told him to get in. He fooled the poor blind man and
exchanged places with him. The father came out and lifted the bag to
his shoulders. He carried it to the river and threw it in.
After the son hid in the mountains for five or six days, he borrowed
a salted fish from a fish vendor and went home. He told his
parents that he got the fish from the river and told them to hurry and
get some. He forced his parents into astra w bag and threw them into
the big river. That was the end.
Tochigi, Haga-gun, Sakagawa-mura