Tradition / Region: Japanese Mythology
Alternate Names: Girl of the Sea
Category: Mermaid
The Myth
During one summer in Kamakura, a clever but willful girl named Namiko went to stay near Yuigahama Beach while her sick mother rested in a hospital nearby. Though she excelled at school, at home she was stubborn and often caused her father trouble with her selfishness.
One day, while playing alone on the shore, Namiko encountered an old woman selling fish. Among the catch was a beautiful striped sea bream, its scales gleaming in the sunlight. Entranced by its natural beauty, Namiko declared that she wished she could be as beautiful as that fish.
The old woman laughed.
“A kimono fades and wears out,” Namiko insisted. “But a fish’s beauty never falls away. If I were as beautiful as that, I would never lose it.”
“Then become a fish,” the old woman said, her eyes sharpening.
“Yes, I would!”
At once the old woman’s laughter ceased. She chanted a strange sutra, and before Namiko could protest, she was transformed into a striped sea bream. The fish-seller’s true form was that of a powerful magician.
Thrown into the sea, Namiko swam bewildered through the underwater world. At first, she was amazed by the shimmering waters and the strange creatures gliding past her. It felt like exploring a living aquarium. But as the currents grew rough and hunger gnawed at her, she was forced to eat small fish she once would have admired. She could not cry; fish have no tears. Loneliness overtook her, and she longed for her parents.
Resting against a rock on the ocean floor, she lamented her foolish words. “All I did was stubbornly wish to be a fish.”
Meanwhile, on the shore, her father and their maid searched desperately. When they found her clothes abandoned on the beach, they believed she had drowned. Their grief was unbearable.
Then the old woman appeared before them.
“Your daughter lives,” she said calmly, and instructed Namiko’s father to take a boat out to sea the next morning.
At dawn, they followed her directions. Pointing to a struggling striped sea bream in the waves, the old woman declared, “That fish is your daughter.”
Understanding that this had been a lesson for his child’s stubborn pride, Namiko’s father fell to his knees and begged the magician to restore her.
As he lifted the sea bream into his arms, the old woman once again chanted her spell. The fish began to grow, its head transforming first, then its body, until Namiko stood once more in human form. Father and daughter embraced in tears, and Namiko vowed never again to let selfish pride rule her heart.
The magician suddenly vanished.
Then a voice drifted down from the sky. The old woman spoke, saying that though she had once used magic to torment many, she had now redeemed herself by correcting Namiko’s ways. Her sins were forgiven, and she would ascend to heaven.
She warned of a coming storm and asked Namiko to send down five-colored thread from the shore.
That afternoon, as winds rose and the sky darkened, Namiko kept her promise. A five-colored thread was cast toward the sea. From the heavens, the old woman—now transformed into a dragon—received it as she ascended.
After that day, Namiko treated her parents with devotion and filial piety. Her mother recovered from illness, and peace returned to their home.
And by the sea at Yuigahama, people remembered the tale of the girl who became a fish—and the dragon who rose to heaven.
Gallery
Sources
tyz-yokai.blog.jp contributors. (n.d.). Namiko. In tyz-yokai.blog.jp, from https://tyz-yokai.blog.jp/archives/1077741623.html
Interpretive Lenses
Religious Readings
- Christian Ascetic Deep Dive
Philosophical Readings
- Nietzschean Deep Dive
Psychological Readings
- Jungian Deep Dive
Esoteric Deep Dive
- Hermetic Deep Dive
Political / Social Readings
- Marxist Deep Dive
Other
- How to Invite The Namiko