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:
“A parent who from his own childhood experience is convinced of the value of fairy tales will have no difficulty in answering his child’s questions; but an adult who thinks these tales are only a bunch of lies had better not try telling them; he won’t be able to related them in a way which would enrich the child’s life.”
—Bruno Bettelheim (20th century)
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Strange alteration! Sin and Death amain
Following his track, such was the will of Heaven,
Paved after him a broad and beaten way
Over the dark abyss, whose boiling gulf
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From hell continued reaching th’ utmost orb
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“We are paid for our suspicions by finding what we suspected.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Although there is no universal agreement as to a definition of life, its biological manifestations are generally considered to be organization, metabolism, growth, irritability, adaptation, and reproduction.”
—The Columbia Encyclopedia, Fifth Edition, the first sentence of the article on “life” (based on wording in the First Edition, 1935)