Pathway to Japanese Literature

Mendokumaru’s father was a Dengaku monk-performer from Sumiyoshi.
But he was no longer here.
Mendokumaru would occasionally try to recall the circumstances of when he had parted from his father.
Mendokumaru was nine years old at that time.

Children of Dengaku monk-performers—who earned their year-round livelihood through itinerant journeys except during Sumiyoshi's sacred rice-planting rituals—were made to travel two or three ri from the time they could barely manage solitary walks. By age nine, he had already crossed Yamato with his father's troupe, accompanying their performances of rice-planting rituals stretching through Iga and Ise.
His father, Shinkichi Hōshi, had fifteen or sixteen Dengaku monk-performers under his command.
In the mornings, when he wasn’t riding horses, he would often fall asleep on the backs of young performers when tired.
And in turns, he was passed from back to back among everyone.
Occasionally, he would half-open his eyes and gaze at the mountain and river landscapes here and there.
In one place, azalea flowers dotted Aogusa Mountain like blazing embers.
In one place, the wide riverbed had water branching into countless streams, and nameless birds flew about in multitudes.
Blended with such scenery, within memories draped in hazy silken robes, the circumstances of that night when his father’s figure vanished also intermingled.

That night deepened, and the moon rose.
Mendokumaru suddenly awoke in the middle of the night.
When he looked, it was Shinkichi Hōshi holding his shoulder and shaking him.

Using these words—“You wouldn’t understand yet”—as a preface, he had spoken for nearly half an hour to those uncomprehending ears in a halting, tear-choked voice, but Mendokumaru could not recall most of it.
By now, even that had come to seem like fragments of a distant dream.
It was only this preface that—having incited the faintly awakening defiance within him at that time—had been clearly imprinted on his mind.
At that time, his father—who was a little over fifty—had developed an unsettling swelling on his face that had begun about two months prior.
He still remembered his father’s back—seen at the bathhouse exit of Shukuin Inn on the outskirts of Nara where they had arrived on the evening before his father concealed himself.
Spots resembling a toad’s skin had appeared without gaps across the swollen skin.

“Father—what happened here?” he reproached. When he saw his father’s face—which gave no answer but remained clouded—the man suddenly covered himself with his kimono.
As he traced back his memories, the words his father had spoken that sorrowful night rose again in his heart.

Both his father and Mendokumaru carried a hereditary disease passed down from their ancestors.
For that reason, his father had taken Buddhist vows and tried to live a pure life, but having succumbed because of a woman, he had joined the company of rustic holy Dengaku monk-performers.
The temple where his father had stayed was, he felt, likely Mount Shosha.
Therefore—as if told that Mendokumaru too should become a monk and lead a pure life—his mind, now slightly exposed to worldly ways, had pieced these thoughts together.
Was keeping his body pure meant as atonement for his father’s sins? Or was it said to be how this disease—so deeply rooted among blood relations—might end within a single generation? His vague memories leaned toward either interpretation as his heart willed.

Mendokumaru was a child performer raised in the Uryūno troupe of Dengaku monk-performers affiliated with Sumiyoshi’s Jingūji temple-monastery, and he lived in the Buryō residence at Tōriōno.

In this group, once they turned eleven or twelve, their heads were vigorously shaved without exception and they were made to wear white robes with waistcloths.
However, Mendokumaru alone remained unshaven until reaching seventeen this year.
Mendokumaru had a slender face with soft, feminine eyebrows and a slightly large mouth, but the teeth that showed between his red lips were as beautiful as seashells.
The way his forehead met his sideburns—Master Gennai Hōshi harbored in his heart an attachment too deep to bear shaving it away.
While thinking This year, this year..., he had postponed it for a year.
And this beautiful youth was celebrated as the sole one among the people of the lands they visited every year.
The rumor that “Ushiwaka must have been someone like this” rose to the lips of women in mountain hamlets.

In mid-May of this year, during the rice-planting dance at the inn in Ise’s Seki they visited annually, Mendokumaru attempted a dangerous feat called the umbrella dance.
This was an act performed by wearing high wooden clogs, raising one’s legs, and repeatedly passing a long-handled umbrella through the gap between them.

The rice seedling beds were entirely covered in green.
The green light reflected off the white cloth of the outdoor canopy shone through each time a leg clad in wide-hakama trousers was lifted, reaching even into thighs pale as snow.
When they had crossed Suzuka from Seki, danced their way through Omi Road, and arrived at Minakuchi’s inn, there were two women who had followed behind the group.
It was that the sister-daughter of Seki’s wealthy man had slipped away from her parents’ home, accompanied by a single maid.

Mendokumaru, his ears flushed crimson up to the lobes, came fleeing into the Master’s room and spoke of the wealthy man’s sister-daughter.
The Master raised a voice thick with avarice and drove the two women away.

Knowing nothing of wrongdoing, Mendokumaru endured the Master’s chastisement until the first rooster crowed that night.

When dawn broke and disciples rose from their bedding, they found Mendokumaru wandering dazedly beneath the garden wisteria trellis, head bowed low over roughly shorn bluish stubble.
In Master Gennai’s quarters lingered an eerie stench—the smell of singed hair.
The Master wore a radiant countenance as he bathed in morning light filtering through the eaves.
Yet this brightness clouded instantly when he saw Mendokumaru’s transformed figure—shoulder gripped by that disciple nicknamed Seitaka Dōji—being hauled forth.

There was nothing to be shocked about.
I was the one who shaved it.
Having just one youth still among us was an eyesore after all.

After sending Mendokumaru to the living room, he laughed unrestrainedly at the disciples who had swarmed around him with knowing looks.

The Uryūno Dengaku troupe first heard a cuckoo as they crossed Mount Ōsaka.
Not long after returning to Sumiyoshi, the Bon Spirit Festival arrived.
Though Master Gennai had routinely sent messengers to the abbot of Jingūji Temple before, now he hesitated even to dispatch Mendokumaru there.
He kept relentless watch over his charge's every movement without respite.

“Something seems off,” the Master would often tilt his head.

The Dengaku performers were also invited to nenbutsu dances in various villages.
Just as July began, with a Bon dance being held in Ishizu Village of Izumi Province, Master Gennai took Mendokumaru and Seitaka Dōji with him and arrived at Ishizu’s dōjō after crossing Mozu’s Mimihara in just over an hour.
That night, the moon shone brightly until dawn.
The nenbutsu dance concluded around midnight.
Urging the two who stood dumbfounded, he hastily set out for home.
They trod through pampas grass and leapt over muddy patches along the path.
Each of the three carried distinct anxieties and resentments in their hearts.
Exhausted from dancing, Seitaka yawned conspicuously at intervals.
Master Gennai walked at the front with an irritated air—as if wanting to scrape away his mood with a file—stomping heavily.
Today’s outing after so long had slightly eased Mendokumaru’s thoroughly gloomy state of mind.
Yet this respite lasted mere moments; from before the dance began, faint unease had skimmed through his thoughts without cease.
He supported a long-handled flowered umbrella measuring three meters and led the chanting.
Even to the ears of men and women dancing wildly under the moon, that kalavinka-like voice rang through with crystalline clarity.
In eyes that intermittently glanced upward without grasping reality, his figure appeared like Jizō Bodhisattva himself.
All young women yearned to kneel at this living Buddha’s feet.
But Mendokumaru stood wide-eyed and vacant, entranced by his own voice cascading from distant heavens.
A memory suddenly tripped his heart.
Crackling words like fire reached his ears.
In his vision flickered flames—a woman’s performance blazing like heat-haze song.

The dancers all stopped moving their hands in unison and stood puzzled by the chant's sudden cessation.
The interrupted song was immediately taken up again.
Yet none could recapture their earlier fervor.
While singing, Mendokumaru shuddered at the thought of his Master's displeased face.
......From burial mounds scattered about, night birds occasionally cried out, startling the three.
Apart from Seitaka muttering complaints like "Tired..." and "...exhausting..." as if reminded of his state, not a single word was exchanged—let alone any proper conversation.
When they returned home, all three collapsed as if boneless and dropped heavily onto the straw mats covering the earthen floor.

Master Gennai grasped Mendokumaru by the collar and dragged him to his own room.

Mendokumaru could not bear to anticipate the terrifying words that would emerge from the Master’s tightly drawn lips, from which not a single word had yet risen.
Time passed over the master and disciple sitting wordlessly facing each other across a pillar’s span.
The short night faintly broke, and morning light fell upon the knees of the two.

“For the art—first and foremost for the Buddha. Think of it as an axe to cut away worldly attachments.”

Having said this, he handed over a scroll titled *The Chapter on the Dragon Girl’s Attainment of Buddhahood*.

“Now, you must transcribe this in blood. Do not harbor even a speck of impurity in your mind! Don’t forget divine punishment.”

Mendokumaru felt his chest sear with anger more intensely than ever before.
However, that was merely drawn out by the Master’s tone.
In his heart’s depths, he could not deny the Master’s words.
Even at the tip of his brush as he wrote the sutra in blood, the figure of the wealthy man’s sister-daughter would flicker into view.
At times, he would feel a refreshing clarity—as if he had expelled the sister-daughter from his heart.
However, into that emptiness came the vague form of a woman—someone unknown.
The first sutra, when it passed into the Master’s hands, was torn to shreds and thrown into the brazier.
Mendokumaru wrote the sutra in blood once more.
When that was rejected, he embarked on his third blood-written sutra.
That sutra too was cast into the garden under the single verdict of "defiled."

Due to consecutive sleepless nights, he would sometimes fall asleep with his eyes open, still holding his brush as he faced the desk. Even during those brief moments, the figures of the wealthy man’s sister-daughter and unknown maidens would intrude.

When the fourth blood-written sutra was presented with trembling hands, the Master’s eyes remained bloodshot, yet a slightly softened expression could be seen—

“Don’t resent people.”
“Think about the dangerous umbrella dance incident.”
“If even a glimpse of a woman’s form floats before your eyes, it’ll be your downfall.”
“You must become one-winged, willing or not.”
“The training of the monks at Jingūji and our training here follow the same principle.”

He did not say a single word about the sutra copying. Then he went down to the room and ordered him to get some sleep. The sutra was placed upon his knees. Eyes that seemed unable to endure attachment traced the trail of blood resembling flames.

Having returned to his own room, Mendokumaru collapsed face down on the wooden floor. What he had taken for cicadas singing was in fact the ringing in his own ears. When he came to his senses, a nosebleed had smeared thickly across the black-lacquered wooden floor. As he lay there, his scattered consciousness began to focus clearly, and he felt the Master’s emotions flowing into his heart. He came to consider that causing such mental anguish was his own sin. Mendokumaru got up. And then, facing the desk, he began his fifth sutra transcription. In a dreamlike state, he moved his brush for about half an hour. However, he had become so exhausted that he could not even dream anymore. In an exhausted corner of his heart, there was a place where a faint light filtered through, and from there, it seemed to him that an unseen world had begun to appear. Mendokumaru gathered his breath, focused his mind, and attempted to probe that brightness.

Master Gennai was still staring at the sutra transcription at this time.
As he did so, tears streamed down his cheeks.
A sudden great anxiety enveloped his mind.
A futile memory from nine years ago resurfaced.
He took out the four sutra scrolls and gazed as if to pierce through the paper.
In each one—whether imagined or not—the vivid crimson color appeared somewhat clouded.

The room contained a large comb-shaped window. Beyond it, in the garden visible through the window, lilies bloomed stark white within the dim light filtering through the bamboo grove.

After his master passed away, he had been welcomed into a Dengaku troupe in Tanba Hikami and spent over ten years there; however, around the time his senior brother Shinkichi Hōshi went missing, he was summoned back and returned to Sumiyoshi after a long absence.
The wife he had married in Hikami died young, and they had never had any children to begin with.
Gathering the goodwill meant for senior brothers and the love meant for a wife and children, they doted solely on Mendokumaru.
As two or three years passed, they began to feel as though Shinkichi Hōshi might return at any moment from some forgotten corner to take Mendokumaru away.
When they raised their resigned eyes and peered at Mendokumaru’s face, their hearts’ attachment deepened all the more.

Ten years had passed since Shinkichii Hōshi withdrew into seclusion.
One day，he absently counted on his fingers and，at the resonance of those words—*ten years*—felt a settling in his heart.
When he heard rumors of Shin kich i’s flight，he believed that he，unable to endure the suffering of the karmic disease，had thrown himself into the sea or a river.
It was the distant past.
There was a time when Shin kich i Hōshi confided his loneliness and frustration to this close fellow disciple.
Master Gennai stole quietly toward Mendokumaru’s room.

Mendokumaru had spread a single thin mat over the wooden floor and, leaning against the sutra desk, was wielding his brush with single-minded concentration.
Over the snow-like swell of the rolled-up upper arm, blood flowed in two or three streams.

Master Gennai returned to the living room. Those beautiful upper arms remained branded upon his chest. The mere act of conjuring up the image of those arms and that beautiful face—swollen and purple—was enough to make his heart ache. The sight of him sucking at that thickly melted poisoned blood—his own form—flickered grotesquely before his eyes. He ran into the household Buddhist altar room and prayed in a voice so loud it seemed he might weep, beseeching, “Please dispel these evil thoughts.” When he saw the fifth sutra transcription, he had already lost the heart to scold.

In the nearby inlets of Enokizu and Kohama, even the fish they caught underwent seasonal changes.
From late autumn into winter, the tips of shore pines visible along the distant coast, tossed by sea winds, drifted like waves over white sandy ground.
The day came when quails dwelled in the garden pine.

Following Sumiyoshi’s Year-End Purification came spring days when the mountains of Ikoma and Shigi lay veiled in haze day after day.
The disciples ridged the fields.
They went hunting too.
In Uryūno-za’s garden, cherry blossoms and kobushi magnolias bloomed riotously.
All yearned for travel.
Master Gennai found no respite from supervising his forgetful disciples’ dance gestures and drilling their quick techniques.
Beneath May’s blue sky—where maidens’ hats shifted through Sumiyoshi’s sacred paddies—over twenty figures in sedge hats and black waistcloths swayed like heat haze as the troupe embarked on their journey.

The group crossed fields where Yokoyama’s shadow swayed over green wheat, emerged from Nara to Hasedera, then embarked on the desolate Iga crossing. A white road wound between grassy hills. The ruined highway had become overgrown with thickets here and there, wild quinces blooming like spilled blood amidst swirling dust.

It was a day when light sweat seeped through skin. The younger ones would stop to cup water seeping from the mountainside and drink. To catch up with those ahead, they dashed about with crimson-flushed faces.

With Kunimiyama before them, a large basin stretched long from east to west.
After fording a rather fierce torrent and entering the mountain's embrace, the songs of men tilling flooded fields and voices of oxen came sounding more leisurely than elsewhere.
That place was a wealthy village—what they called a hidden hamlet of non-retainer samurai.

The Uryūno-za troupe received warm hospitality at the local samurai's house.
Master Gennai immediately began preparations for tomorrow's dance.
The robust Seitaka joined the servants of the house who were hauling out squared timber from the storehouse at the corner of the estate and worked alongside them.

Mendokumaru walked about the spacious estate, looking here and there.

It occupied a hilltop overlooking low rice fields on all sides, with a modest building of over a hundred tsubo standing at its center.

On the widely protruding veranda sat fifteen or sixteen rustic boys and girls with sun-browned complexions who had been staring fixedly at the group’s appearance from the moment Mendokumaru and the others arrived. Their eyes glinted with envy and hatred that mirrored back urban desirability, alongside malice and contempt for outsiders. Wherever young Mendokumaru went, he met such gazes. And each time this occurred, he felt his very being shrink inward.

The children soon climbed up the wide ladder visible from outside to the platform above.

For the group, a south-facing room overlooking the cliff was assigned.

While Master Gennai had gone to greet the master of the house, one of those who had been lying sprawled out noticed him sitting alone amidst them and asked, “What’s wrong?”

He could only answer *“It’s nothing”*—adrift in a state where he could find no words to say.

The hollow house interior was filled with the clamor of voices drifting from afar. The children were singing various unfamiliar songs in innocent voices. Mendokumaru thought of the Uryūno-za house. But even in a house devoid of women’s presence—with only young men and middle-aged men temporarily lodging there—the realization that this was no different from any other traveler’s stopover pressed upon him like something tugging at his chest.

Exhausted...

“Oh, Mendokumaru.”
“You’re here too?”
“You always have that wretched habit.”
“Walk long roads and this is what happens.”
“What’s with that sour face?”

Mendokumaru could not remain silent.

“This time when we return,” I thought, “I’ll ask Master to let me enter either Jingūji or Keharaji Temple.”

“Hey—spouting weird shit again?” Seitaka’s voice cut through the air. “You’ve probably got some monk-fox from Daisenryō haunting you these days.”

Seitaka, who had been snoring until now, turned over and faced this way.
It was an imposing voice that seemed to carry the dignity of seniority.

That’s right!
“According to Master’s story, even among the disciples he raised in Hikami, there was a man who kept yammerin’ ‘bout wanna be head priest just like this—ended up fallin’ into the lotus pond and dyin’, I tell ya.”
"The God of Death tends to be drawn to such times, they say."
“Be careful.”

Another middle-aged man joined them.

“Don’t any of you feel anything?” he wondered. “Whether we return to Sumiyoshi or stay like this—it’s all the same journey. If only I could settle at a temple, I might find some peace of mind—or so I think.”

“What kinda fool talk from a punk like you,” Seitaka snapped. “Can’t stand Uryūno.” He leaned forward, voice rising. “You start spoutin’ that crap, what’m I s’posed to do? Put your damn hand on your chest and think—Master’s been coddlin’ you like his own brat since you were knee-high!” Spittle flew as he jabbed a finger. “What’s your fuckin’ problem bringin’ this up now?”

A voice tinged with sanctimonious reasonableness responded.

"But still—after journeying all this way and settling where my heart finds ease—I feel this unbearable urge to stay motionless for days on end."

The quick-tempered Seitaka set his jaw and roared like a man ready to deliver a crushing blow.

"What."
"Don’t get clever with me! ‘The Dengaku monk-performers can work wonders with high stilts and sword jewels—that’s service enough to Buddha!’ That’s what Master said!"
"You’ve come to hate Dengaku and mean to slink off to some Sarugaku troupe now, don’t you?"

His heart seething like boiling water turned into sharp words and surged up.
Mendokumaru sat overwhelmed by this force, utterly helpless.
The other’s bewildered expression only stoked higher the flames of suspicion.

“The swinging rhythm technique.
In Enman’i they call that a grand obsession.
This swinging rhythm—the very lifeblood of Uryūno-za! That master of ours turned down every plea from Sakashita and Hikami troupes groveling foreheads to dirt time after time… Yet he hands it down just to you! Take that treasure over to Kasuga and watch how they’ll fawn—promote you straight off to some fancy supporting role!”
“That flat face of yours runs marrow-deep…… But mark me—mark me well! Try sneaking off to pass that rhythm—sworn before gods and Buddha when bestowed—to those thriving Sarugaku troupes.”
“Divine punishment’ll have you vomiting blood!”
“…Twenty years I’ve beaten nothing but kakko drums and sasara—think I’ll let you get away with this?”

Seitaka finally broke down in tears.
His own rough words disturbed and inflamed his heart.

The prudent man circled around the long veranda and led Mendokumaru before where the Master was seated.

Master Gennai had closed his eyes and was listening intently.
As the prudent man exaggeratedly mediated between both parties with his manner of speech, Mendokumaru felt all the nerves in his body stiffening.
When he himself had not yet been welcomed into the Hikami-za troupe, he felt as though he were hearing once more—right before his very eyes—the single-minded words he had been told from the mouth of the young Shinkichi Hōshi near the veranda of the Uryūno household.
In his head, events from thirty years ago and those of the present moment swirled together into a single vortex.
And at times, a cold reflection would pour chillingly down his spine like water.
He forcibly calmed his mind.
And then, he lowered his gaze to the remarkably matured and well-formed bone structure spanning from Mendokumaru’s back to waist—Mendokumaru, who still kept his face down.
The words that the prudent man and Mendokumaru had anticipated did not escape his lips; instead, laboring words soothed Mendokumaru’s frayed state of mind.

You too, after all, were your father’s child.
The blood of Shinkichi Hōshi appeared not to have been appeased even by a single generation’s act of devotion.
Such words, though meaningless, resonated as sorrowful ones to the prudent man and Mendokumaru once spoken.
A deep breath emerged from the depths of the Master’s belly.

The prudent man wore a deflated expression, thinking this behavior ill-suited to the short-tempered Master he knew. Now advanced in years, the Master comforted Seitaka by treating it as a laughing matter—how thoroughly the vise of his authority had loosened.

The following morning, when the east began to pale, cicadas shrilled everywhere here and there.
They speculated yesterday's heat must have hatched them overnight.
From when dew still clung to the grass onward—Master Gennai leading with his gold-brocaded apron gleaming—the troupe emerged from the dim samurai residence into sun-flooded dawn, white hemp robes and red face-wraps donned, sedge hats layered atop.
And so they processed solemnly down the endless slope.
Seitaka followed directly behind the Master while hoisting a six-meter flowered pole upright.

By the time the troupe reached the distant sunken field, Mendokumaru—who had cracked open his eyes—crawled out from his bedding, thinking he had done something inexcusable. When he had donned his costume and fastened the kakko drum at his waist, he suddenly staggered and fell backward. While wiping his blood-stained cheek, the Master told him he should stay asleep a while longer.

Mendokumaru had been unable to sleep through the night.
The dream he had just now was a continuation of last night’s.

He had been climbing through high mountains.
When the road ended and he looked back, the way he had come was blocked by a dense forest.
Even higher peaks, appearing on the verge of collapse, towered before him and on both sides.
The time seemed like morning.
It could also be considered like midday.
The sasa thicket was densely overgrown, making it impossible to survey the nearby area.
There was no flowing water, but the entire area was damp.
When he stopped walking, a terrifying stillness suddenly began to envelop him.
He walked through the bamboo grass, making noise recklessly in an attempt to escape the terrifying silence that had pressed in around him.

He emerged into a forest.
It was indeed a forest he recognized.
When he had reached this mountain pass, it was this path that he had been walking along tentatively.
But only the mountains still surrounded him.
As he walked thinking he was retracing his steps, he came upon an earthen fort.
Circling around it, there stood the Shiori Gate.
Driven by nostalgic longing, he felt compelled to enter and went inside.
The garden overflowed with white flowers in full bloom.
They might have been small chrysanthemums, yet also resembled bramble blossoms.
No matter how far he walked, he couldn't reach the comb-shaped window that hovered before his eyes.
Though he walked what felt like half an hour, the distance to the window remained unchanged; both ahead and behind seemed buried under white flowers.
He collapsed onto the flowers and wept aloud.
Then, hearing a sound close by, he suddenly looked up—the window now loomed above his head.
And from within it, a single face emerged with crystalline clarity.

Mendokumaru’s return to sleep ended abruptly when his elbow pillow collapsed.

He left the bedding, leaned against the veranda pillar, and tried repeatedly to summon up that face.
It was a face he somehow recognized.
It was simply a face he had encountered at some time.
While Mendokumaru was pondering whether it was this or that, the face gradually faded away like mist dissipating.
When his train of thought suddenly arrived at a single realization, a nostalgic yet aching feeling surged forth like water gushing from beneath a dislodged stone.
And then he sank deeper and deeper into that feeling.

From the foot of the mountain came the synchronized rustling of sasara instruments, their sounds resonating in unison.
The persistent beat of the kakko drum began to echo through the air.
Mendokumaru strained upward to peer into the distance.
Yet that area lay shrouded in the mountain's shadow, with no discernible figures to be seen.
The kakko drum's rhythm abruptly intensified.

Mendokumaru rose to his feet.
He couldn't stay like this any longer—the realization stabbed through his chest like a blade.

(Postscript)

This story is one that has been written by taking the Takayasu Chōja legend, stripping away elements of religious ethics presented as expedient means, and returning it to its most primal form.

It seems people generally consider this tale—derived from the Noh play *Yorobōshi*—to have been incorporated into preachers’ sermons upon entering the Edo period, thereafter used in both old jōruri and jōruri puppet theater, and further adapted into stage plays. However, if one gradually approaches the primal imagery from the present-day *Sesshū Gappō Tsuji*, while reaching as far as *sekkyōbushi* sermon-ballads proves relatively straightforward, there appears to be a severe chasm between *Yorobōshi* and *sekkyōbushi* itself.
Or perhaps they are two tributaries that diverged from a single stream.

For us, drawing such a vivid demarcation between history and legend in our considerations was impossible.
In particular, we harbored doubts about contemporary historians’ potential for historical discourse and their methods of expression.
I believed that the efficacy of historical discourse must naturally manifest itself concretely and therefore take the form of a novel or even progress to that of a play.
I therefore attempted to use the form of a novel as an expressive format for the study of legends.
What I wished to ask of those who read this story was that you recognize my position as a storyteller conveying a legend in its primal form.
The developmental paths of legendary folktales were relatively clearly visible to us.
Even when incorporating expansions and additions that naturally ought to accompany them, there was absolutely no attempt at forced contrivances.
We were versed in the method of narrating legends by extending them straightforwardly.

The name "Shuntokumaru" is a later phonetic rendering; I still believe Shintokumaru is likely correct. Regarding Mendokumaru, I would ask you to read the character "毒" not as a voiced sound but as a clear one.

To speak plainly, I consider that compared to the lineage of Noh plays, the lineage of sermon-ballads—even when containing numerous expedient devices and contrivances—does not lose those elements that make one wish to believe in them. However, I hold that the title *Yorobōshi* from Noh plays hints at this story's origins while simultaneously revealing—within the history of Japanese song-and-dance theater—the precious twilight glow cast by the Takayasu Chōja legend.