Since I’m exploring Japanese culture, I thought a good follow up to the Ukiyo-E book would be The Demon at Agi Bridge and Other Japanese Tales, which is a collection of Setsuwa stories from various compilations.

Setsuwa stories refer to “stories that were first orally narrated and then written down. These recorded stories were often retold, resulting in new variations, which were again recorded.” And while they were originally oral tales, they were often written down into compilations that were inspired by Chinese encyclopedias. These compilations, known as setsuwa-shu, turned what started off as oral stories (and I guess, folktales) into “a literary form that provided a structured worldview and that categorized that world into different spheres and topics.”

Additionally, Setsuwa were also used as a means of preserving family knowledge when a family line faced extinction. One example are the Ōe Conversations (Gōdanshō), “a setsuwa collection that records the stories narrated by Ōe no Masafusa (1041–1111), one of the leading scholars and poets of the time. […] The Gōdanshō takes the form of a dialogue between the narrator and the listener. This kind of setsuwa, which emerged in the late Heian period, was the product of an age in which knowledge about aristocratic culture and its historical precedents was held in high esteem but was quickly disappearing as the aristocracy fell from power. In this regard, setsuwa can be considered as a form of topical history, a history that is narrated before it is written.“

As you can see, Setsuwa are so much more than short stories. I really appreciated the introduction to Setsuwa (which you can see I quoted very liberally from) as it helped me to contextualise them and see them more than just short stories. Apart from the introduction, which sets the stage for Setsuwa as a genre, each collection that the stories are taken from are also given a short introduction that explains when they were written, by who, and what the main themes are.

The stories themselves are pretty short and easy to read. I enjoyed them all, though I didn’t have a particular favourite among them. They reminded me a lot of Aesop’s fables because they tend to come with a moral, especially the tales that would have been used in Buddhist sermons.

Overall, I would highly recommend this to anyone who wants to explore traditional Japanese literature. Setsuwa, by the nature of the form, are short and easy to read (as opposed to longer stories like The Tale of Genji, and poetry which might not translate easily). This collection also does a great job in introducing the genre and the collections from which the stories are taken, which means that you can enjoy the stories while also learning more about the Setsuwa itself.