Snow White

Recently I`ve read a book which is about myth or anecdotes in Japan,
written by a famous SF writer, Hoshino Yukinobu.
Its title is "Professor Munakata`s romance."

Unfortunately, this is not a love story.；
But it`s a historical, sometimes archeological, and very fascinating story.
And, that was so interesting!
So today, I`d like to tell you about it and describe what I thought.

As you know, there is a disney movie titled "Snow White."

The heroine, Snow White is living with seven pygmies.
One day, She is killed by her stepmother, eating an toxic apple.
But in the end of the story, she is brought back to life by seven pygmies.

But perhaps most of you don`t know the original story.
In the original story, She is attacked not by her stepmother but by her own mother.
And she is attacked not once, but three times.
The first time, the mother try to kill her by a hair ornament.
The second time, by a comb with toxic.
And the last time, by a toxic apple.

In this book, the most interesting thing is that
the plot of the original story is very similar to that of Japanese myth,
which is completely different story.

In the Japanese myth, there are two main characters.
"Izanami", who is a goddess, and "Izanagi", who is a god.
They are married. And Izanagi is creating all things.
But when she has a baby of fire god, she was burned and died.
She is to go to ”Yomotukuni”, that is the land of the dead.
But when Izanagi go to there to save his wife, she was already too late.
There was a her decomposed body surrounded by eight gods of thunder.

So he then try to escape from her, by using following three items.
A vine as a hair ornament, a comb,
and a peach.

And his trial succeed.

Although the last parts of these two stories are the opposite,
there are so many similarities.

I really enjoyed reading it.
Because it makes me think deeply.
Myth or acdonetes is not things only for investigating tha past.
They could be truth, or they could be untruth.
But whether if they are or not,
it is very exciting to think about the history or process deeply, isn`t it?
And it may be chance to connect one country to others.

In today`s ARW class, Ken told us a very interesting story.

It was about a kind of intercultural perception.

Though this "snow white" story is not related to it,
I wonder if all we have been connected with each other even long long time ago.