Yanagita Kunio almost singlehandedly initiated the serious study of folklore in Japan. Even modern Japanese folklorists who may disagree with his approach or his methods must take his body of work as a point of departure for their own. This book, first published in 1990, puts Yanagita's career within a historical framework and context, full of detail about Japanese political and literary trends which influenced or were influenced by the folklore scholarship of Yanagita.

Boldly illustrated and superbly translated, Folk Legends from Tono captures the spirit of Japanese peasant culture undergoing rapid transformation into the modern era.This is the first time these 299 tales have been published in English. Morse s insightful interpretation of the tales, his rich cultural annotations, and the evocative original illustrations make this book unforgettable. In 2008, a companion volume of 118 tales was published by Rowman & Littlefield as the The Legends of Tono. Taken together, these two books have the same content (417 tales) as the Japanese language book Tono...

Boldly illustrated and superbly translated, Folk Legends from Tono captures the spirit of Japanese peasant culture undergoing rapid transformation into the modern era. This is the first time these 299 tales have been published in English. Morse's insightful interpretation of the tales, his rich cultural annotations, and the evocative original illustrations make this book unforgettable. In 2008, a companion volume of 118 tales was published by Rowman & Littlefield as the The Legends of Tono. Taken together, these two books have the same content (417 tales) as the Japanese language book Tono...