Urashima Tarō
浦島太郎
In Ozaki's retelling, the fisherman Urashima Tarō enters a marvelous undersea realm and later returns home to discover that time has passed very differently in the human world.
The story combines hospitality in an otherworld with the shock of return. What feels like a limited stay away from home becomes a profound temporal separation from everything Urashima knew.
Loreveil labels this as Ozaki's historical retelling rather than a definitive Japanese version. Urashima traditions have earlier literary witnesses and later regional forms that can be added as variants.
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Connected lore
Curated relationships invite comparison without implying that distinct traditions are the same.
Sources & citations
Ozaki, Yei Theodora. Japanese Fairy Tales. London: Archibald Constable & Co., 1908.
Yei Theodora Ozaki · Archibald Constable & Co.; digital edition by Project Gutenberg · 1908
public domain