Tsukumogami - Difficulty in Finding A Definition

Difficulty in Finding A Definition

Because the term has been applied to several different concepts in Japanese folklore, there remains some confusion as to what the term actually means.

For example, literally, Tsukumogami is translated as “old woman hair,” though other scholars have defined it as “pasqueflower” as well. This comes from a tenth-century poem:

Momotose ni/ Hitotose taranu/ Tsukumogami/ Ware wo kourashi/ Omokage ni miyu.

Read more about this topic:  Tsukumogami

Famous quotes containing the words difficulty in, difficulty, finding and/or definition:

    The human imagination ... has great difficulty in living strictly within the confines of a materialist practice or philosophy. It dreams, like a dog in its basket, of hares in the open.
    John Berger (b. 1926)

    The great difficulty is first to win a reputation; the next to keep it while you live; and the next to preserve it after you die, when affection and interest are over, and nothing but sterling excellence can preserve your name. Never suffer youth to be an excuse for inadequacy, nor age and fame to be an excuse for indolence.
    Benjamin Haydon (1786–1846)

    A submissive spirit might be patient, a strong understanding would supply resolution, but here was something more; here was that elasticity of mind, that disposition to be comforted, that power of turning readily from evil to good, and of finding employment which carried her out of herself, which was from Nature alone. It was the choicest gift of heaven.
    Jane Austen (1775–1817)

    ... we all know the wag’s definition of a philanthropist: a man whose charity increases directly as the square of the distance.
    George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)