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The Ogre Who Cried: A Modern Japanese Folktale
| Article
# : |
19307 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
6 / 1991 |
2,259 Words |
| Author
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Christi Ann Merrill
Christi Ann Merrill is a free-lance writer and teacher
residing in New York City. |
Once upon a time, there were two ogres who lived in the mountains of Japan. One ogre was red and the other was blue, so they called themselves Red Ogre and Blue Ogre. Red Ogre was all red: His earlobes were red, his knees were red, even the tip of his nose was red. Blue Ogre was as blue as Red Ogre was red: From his twisted brow to his clawed toes, he was nothing but blue. Blue, blue, blue.
Like all ogres, their eyes glinted gold; stubby, coarse horns sprouted out of their heads; and they wore tiger skins wrapped around their waists. Whenever they feasted, Red Ogre and Blue Ogre preyed upon the mightiest beasts of the jungle, leaving behind bones and blood.
Woodcutters would run away screaming if the ogres crossed their paths. Villagers would shudder to hear them cackle. The stories of their infamy spread far and wide. Yet, these stories were not really about Red Ogre and Blue Ogre, for they were not like other ogres.
Red Ogre and Blue Ogre actually liked the villagers they lived near. They would sit in a giant pine tree overlooking the village and watch woman hanging clean clothes up to dry, children spinning bright colored tops in the dirt, and framers bringing armfuls of eggplant and horse-radish back from the fields. This made Red Ogre and Blue Ogre very happy. But most of all, the two ogres liked to watch the older children play a hide-and-seek game called Oni-go-ko. In Japanese, an ogre is called an Oni. So Red Ogre and Blue Ogre thought the children named the game after them!
The children of the village would gather in a circle and call out: "Jan-ken-hoi!" At the word "hoi," they would make their hands into scissors, paper, or rocks. Scissors cut paper, paper covered rock, rock smashed scissors. Their hands would cut or cover or smash until just one was the loser; he would become the Oni.
Whenever the game began, Red Ogre would clap his hands in delight. Sitting on their giant pine branch, Red Ogre and Blue Ogre would watch as the game's Oni pressed his face against a wall and counted to one hundred, while the rest of the children scattered and hid. Finally, when they were tucked away in cowsheds and behind doors, the Oni would finish counting and go looking for them. He would hunt and hunt until he found them all. Then they would start the game over and pick a new Oni.
"Wouldn't it be fun to play Oni-go-ko with them?" Red Ogre
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