Reading Diary B: Japanese Fairy Tales (Ozaki)

Princess Hase and her father illustrated by a Japanese artist
in Ozaki's Japanese Fairy Tales

Okay so after reading the second half of this unit (Japanese Fairy Tales (Ozaki)), my very favorite story is the story about Princess Hase. I think it is such a cool story, and it is a little bit reminiscent of both Cinderella and Snow White. Princess Hase had to deal with the whole evil stepmother thing like Cinderella, although her stepmother was a little more evil than Disney would probably ever allow.

The stepmother even ordered her to be taken off into the wilderness to be killed. This was when I started thinking of Snow White... Remember when the evil queen decides she wants Snow White dead and orders a hunter to kill her in the woods and bring back her heart? The servant doesn't want to kill Princess Hase, so instead he gets his wife, builds a cottage in the mountains and raises her... pretty Snow White like, right?

I loved how this story was so full of Japanese culture and tradition, but read so much like European fairy tales. I really loved the beginning of the story about when Princess Hase was a child. The early death of her mother, and her determination to follow what her mother had instructed her to do made her seem so wise beyond her years.

One of the scenes from when she was young that really stuck out in my mind was when her stepmother poisoned a bottle of wine in an attempt to kill her, but instead accidentally fed it to her son killing him. I can picture the scene so vividly in my mind of how this must have played out, and it absolutely gives me chills.