Tradition / Region: Japanese Mythology
Alternate Names: —
Category: Fish, Carp, Yokai
The Myth
In Kawachi Province there lies a deep pool known as Uchisuke-ga-fuchi, whose waters were said never to dry. On its bank lived a fisherman named Uchisuke, a solitary man who made his living by catching carp.
One day, Uchisuke caught a female carp of uncommon dignity, marked by patterns unlike any he had seen before. Instead of selling it, he kept the fish. As years passed, a tomoe crest appeared upon its scales, and the carp grew strangely attached to him. It began to respond when called by name, lingered near him like a companion, and in time even left the water to sleep in his house and share his meals.
For eighteen years Uchisuke kept the carp in a tank. By then it had grown to the size of a young girl of fourteen or fifteen.
At last, Uchisuke married. One night, while he was away fishing, a beautiful woman wearing a pale blue kimono patterned with rising waves burst into the house. She spoke to the new wife with fury, saying that she had known Uchisuke for many years and was even carrying his child. Burning with resentment at being cast aside, she ordered the wife to return to her parents’ home at once, warning that if she did not, a great wave would rise within three days and drag the house into the pond.
Terrified, the wife fled and told Uchisuke what she had seen. He laughed it off, saying that such a woman could never have desired him, and that it must have been an illusion. As dusk fell, he returned to the pond in his boat.
Suddenly the water surged. Seaweed parted, and a massive carp leapt into the boat. From its mouth it spat out a small being shaped like a human child, with hair upon its head, yet with scales upon its body. Then the carp plunged back into the depths and vanished.
Uchisuke fled in terror. When he returned home and looked into the fish tank, Tomoe was gone.
After this, the villagers spoke among themselves and said, “In all things, it is not good for humans to keep living creatures too close to them.”
Gallery
Sources
TYZ-Yokai Blog contributors. (n.d.). 巴御前 (Tomoe). In TYZ-Yokai Blog, from https://tyz-yokai.blog.jp/archives/1010655112.html
Interpretive Lenses
Religious Readings
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Philosophical Readings
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Psychological Readings
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Esoteric Deep Dive
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Political / Social Readings
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Other
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