「夢 / yume」- In English, the word ‘dream’ is used.
As you know, ‘Dream’ is used in two different ways: as a dream you have when you are asleep and as a dream you have for the future.
This is the same for both the Japanese word ‘夢’ and the English word ‘Dream’. It is also the same in German ‘Traum’, French ‘rêve’ and Italian ‘sogno’.
The word is probably used in this way because it describes an ‘unrealised event’. It brings a strange impression because of the various elements that are packed into it, as it is uncertain.
Today I would like to send you an eccentric folk tale that concerns those who “dream in their sleep at night”…
『猪作の夢 / Dream of Isaku』
There once was a man called Isaku in Nakanbara, in the village of Kitsuki（Kyushu Oita Prefecture）.
He was a simple man, but he was serious at heart and worked the fields in silence.
He was especially good at digging out yams（Chinese yam / Long yam）.
He dug up even the longest yams without a scratch.
One day, Isaku was walking in the hills behind his house, looking for yams, as he always did.
He looked up and saw a thick vine as big as a club.
He thought it must be a big yam and started digging with all his might.
Soon after, a yam appeared, but it seemed to be longer than expected, and no matter how hard he dug, he couldn’t dig it out.
So Isaku had no choice but to dig around the yam, and then he got into the hole himself and dug on.
However, even after digging further, he could not find the end of the yam at all.
He wondered how long the yam had been there, but he thought it would ruin his reputation as a master potato digger if he stopped here, so he pushed himself to dig on. I dug, but…
He wondered how long he had dug, He had lost track of how many days he had dug, when he finally dug the end of the yam.
Good God, it was a very long yam… but pulling it up was a challenge, he thought, and only when he looked back did he realise…
He had dodged backwards and forwards through the soil he had dug so hard into, so the entrance he had come in was dark and far away beyond the soil. Even if he wanted to go back, he couldn’t…
This is the garden of an umbrella shop in Osaka.
It was a beautiful sunny day, so he thought it would be a good time to dry the umbrellas he’d made.
The owner of the umbrella shop took his workmen out into the garden, and found something moving in the middle of the garden.
What’s that? Soon the earth cracks open, and something like a head is waddling out of the soil.
「It’s a monster mole! Hey! Bring the hoe!”All hell broke loose.」
Then they heard a voice from the earth.
「Wait a minute! I’m not a mole! I’m a man! It’s a man!」
Before everyone’s astonished eyes, out of the earth came Isaku.
「My name is Isaku, and I live in Kitsuki in Kyushu…」
After dropping the soil, Isaku told the owner of the umbrella shop what had happened.
The owner listened in amazement, thinking that strange things happen.
But Kyushu is a very far province from here in Osaka.
（Straight line distance from Kitsuki to Osaka approx. 500 km）
Shop owner said, 「As it is, you won’t have any money to go home with, so why don’t you work in my shop for a while to earn some money for your return?」
The umbrella shop owner was very kind and the next day Isaku started working at the umbrella shop.
At first, Isaku was bewildered by the unfamiliar work, but he was a serious man at heart.
Eventually he learned his trade and became useful to the shop.
One day, Isaku went out into the garden to dry the umbrella he had put up.
As soon as he opened the umbrella, a gust of wind suddenly blew in.
With the umbrella in my hand, His blown up so fast that he could see the streets of Osaka at my feet.
He can’t take my hand off the stick of the umbrella for dear life.
And while he was wondering what was going to happen, it just kept blowing up and up and up…
And finally we reached the top of the clouds.
As far as the eye can see, the clouds are white. Isaku is looking around for the first time.
Soon after, a thud from the other side! Boom! Someone was coming from the other side.
「Who the hell are you!? What are you doing here!?」
What a surprise! It was the ”雷神 / Raijin” who called out to us.
（雷神 / Raijin = Lord of Thunder）
Isaku shrank back at the sight of the Raijin, who resembled a terrifying demon, but when I told him what had happened so far, he said.
(Left) Raijin / 雷神 (Right) Hūjin / 風神
「I see, so you’ve been hit by the Hūjin’s mischief, I’m sorry to hear that.」（Hūjin / 風神 = Lord of Wind）
「Then you should spend some time in the heavenly world, and you may be able to return sooner or later.」
The Raijin’s kind words, which didn’t match his features, brought a sigh of relief, and from that day on, Isaku began to live as the Raijin’s helper…
Helping Raijin. When Raijin beats the drum in a small way, isaku drops water with a small ladle. When Raijin beats the drum loudly, isaku draws water from a large ladle and sprinkles it vigorously.
Isaku liked this job so much that every day he would sprinkle water here and there to the accompaniment of Raijin’s drumming.
One day, Raijin suddenly struck all the drums at once.
Boom!
Isaku, determined to get all the water flowing, put his hand on the bottom of the bucket and sprinkled it all over the ground at once.
However, he opened the tub so vigorously that isaku also fell from the clouds in the process.
Zaboom!
The sound of rushing water brought Isaku back to life, but it seems he fell into a river somewhere.
Where in the world is this river? I struggled to get to the shore, but suddenly it was pitch black before my eyes.
What a surprise! Just when I thought I had saved myself from death by falling into the river, I was swallowed up by a carp that was eight feet tall…
Just at that time, a man called Heikiti, a childhood friend who lived next door to isaku’s house in the village of Kitsuki, came to cast a net in the river.
When he looked up, he saw an incredibly large carp making noise on the surface of the water.
He thought this was an unexpected stroke of luck, so he cast his net and caught it alive.
Heikiti somehow managed to carry the carp home. He put it on the chopping board and split open its belly with a knife, and was surprised to find isaku inside.
「Is it not isaku? Why do you come out of the belly of a carp !」
Isaku was also surprised. When he finally emerged from the pitch-darkness, he was surprised to find that it was his childhood friend who was there.
What a coincidence, it seems that it was the Yasaka River in his hometown that fell from the clouds.
isaku told heikiti the story of how he dug yams to get to Osaka, was blown by the wind to the clouds, and then tumbled down into the river.
When he was about to return home after being away for a while, he was told a terrible thing by heikiti.
「isaku, how many years do you think you have been away from home…?」
「Your wife has missed you a lot since you left. That’s why she finally died last year…」
What a thing to say. I can’t put it into words.
I thought it would only be a month or so at the most, but before I knew it, ten years had passed…
Just because I was stubborn about digging yams, I put my wife through a lot of hardship, made her feel lonely, and finally let her die…
Grief-stricken ISAKU visits his wife’s grave to comfort her spirit by at least removing some weeds around her grave.
(mom… I’m sorry…)
Choking up, he put his hands together towards his wife’s grave.
And when I tried to pluck the grass around the grave…
For some reason, the grass started to grow back, one after the other.
What is this about? Why is this grass growing so flutteringly? It’s growing…?
「Hey, Hubby! What are you doing!?」
isaku … He tearfully pulled his wife’s hair as she slept next to him.
He had a very long dream…
What we thought was a matter of a few days was actually years or decades… This is a common pattern in folktales and fairy tales.
Temporal discrepancies appear regularly in the dream world as well, but for some reason the person dreaming the dream does not feel strange about it and accepts it.
This is because the elements that make up a dream are a series of data based on the person’s memories. And this is probably because the essential thinking of human beings is focused on subjectivity.
I guess “dreams” are the perfect plot for creative stories, where mystery and interest are important.
We hope to bring you another story about “dreams” in the next issue.
Good night…