Books on Asian Myths and Legends

Miscellaneous Discussion. Any topics that don't fit in other areas of the forum.


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Mar 1st, '09, 08:01
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Books on Asian Myths and Legends

by Drax » Mar 1st, '09, 08:01

Pursuant to the discussion in the teaware thread on the "Legend of Stone" --

Does anybody know of good books that cover myths and legends in the Asian culture (e.g. China and Japan). I know a fair number of Japanese stories (Urashima Taro, Momo Taro, the Bamboo Cutter/Moon Princess), but there are so many...

Even books in Japanese will work if they are done well. Not so much in Chinese for me, at least. (:

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by silverneedles » Mar 1st, '09, 09:21

I'd also like to know
in the mean time i'm enjoying this site with pictures :) http://www.japanippon.com/fairytales/index.htm

on here, more books
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query ... pe%3Atexts
select a title (some can be then downloaded as pdf, txt, or viewed)
click the moving picture box on left to get a flip book type experience
ex: http://www.archive.org/stream/japanesef ... 01no10thom

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Mar 1st, '09, 20:33
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by Drax » Mar 1st, '09, 20:33

Oooh, great sites, and nifty books! Too bad they aren't in Japanese, too (I'm also looking for good reading/practice material).

I had forgotten about this neat site:

http://www.obakemono.com/introduction.php

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Mar 2nd, '09, 17:44
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by Drax » Mar 2nd, '09, 17:44

Well, I found a whole host of monster/fairy-tale related books, but they're all in Japanese. I'll wait till I get them (probably about a month) to post, since I'm not sure how comprehensive some of them are going to be (and others are just good ol' fashioned horror books).

But if you're interested, look around for Shigeru Mizuki... he's apparently the master of "youkai"... probably having created about 1000 of them himself. That's one reason it was hard to figure out which books focused on the "traditional" ones.

Anyway, *twiddle thumbs*... back to my 4th grade science book in the meantime...! :D

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Mar 2nd, '09, 19:41
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by chingwa » Mar 2nd, '09, 19:41

you should definitely check out Lafcadio Hearn ("Kwaidan", "In Ghostly Japan" etc). No serious look at japanese tales would be complete without his work. AND he is imminently readable even after all these years.

I would also recommend the volume "Japanese Gothic Tales" by Izumi Kyouka.

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