The Tale of The Bamboo Cutter - Literary Connections

Literary Connections

Elements of the tale were drawn from earlier stories. The protagonist Taketori no Okina, given by name, appears in the earlier poetry collection Man'yōshū (c. 759; poem# 3791). In it, he meets a group of women to whom he recites a poem. This indicates that there previously existed an image or tale revolving around a bamboo cutter and celestial or mystical women.

A similar retelling of the tale appears in the c. 12th century Konjaku Monogatarishū (volume 31, chapter 33), although their relation is under debate.

There have been suggestions that The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter is adapted from the Chinese legend Chang'e and is related to the tale of Swan Lake. This probably is due to Kaguya-hime wearing the hagoromo (羽衣 "feather robe") when she ascends to her homeland. But the hagoromo figures more famously in a group of tales known as the hagoromo densetsu (in one example recorded in the Ōmi-no-kuni Fudoki tells of a man who instructs his dog to steal the hagoromo of eight heavenly maidens while they were bathing, forcing one of them to become his bride). And the latter is remarkably similar to the tale of the Chinese traditional Magpie Festival legend of the Fairy Couple. also similar to the story of how Völundr Smith and his brothers wedded the swan-maidens.