drawing of the Utsuro-bune by Nagahashi Matajirou (1844).
Toen shōsetsu On February 22, 1803, fishermen on the coast of
Hitachi Province saw a strange vessel drifting in the sea. They towed the vessel to land and discovered that it was 3.30
metres (10.83
feet) high and 5.45 metres (17.88 feet) wide. Its shape reminded them of a
kōro (Japanese
incense burner). Its upper part appeared to be made of red-lacquered
rosewood, while the lower part was covered with
metal plates. The upper part had several windows made of glass or crystal, covered with bars and clogged with some kind of
tree resin. The shape of the hollow boat resembled a wooden rice pit. The windows were completely transparent and the baffled fishermen looked inside. The inner side of the
utsuro-bune was decorated with texts written in an unknown language. Oddly enough, one of the symbols inside the vessel resembled
South Korea's current flag. The fishermen found items inside such as two bed sheets, a bottle filled with 3.6 litres of water, some cake and kneaded meat. Then the fishermen saw a young woman, possibly 18 or 20 years old. Her body size was said to be 1.5 metres (4.92 feet). The woman had
red hair and eyebrows, the hair elongated by artificial white extensions. The extensions could have been made of white
fur or thin, white-powdered
textile streaks. This hairstyle cannot be found in any literature. The skin of the lady was a very pale pink color. She wore long and smooth clothes of unknown fabrics. The woman began speaking, but no one understood her. She did not seem to understand the fishermen either, so no one could ask her about her origin. Although the mysterious woman appeared friendly and courteous, she acted oddly, for she always clutched a rectangular box made of pale material and around 0.6 m (24 in) in size. The woman did not allow anyone to touch the box, no matter how kindly or pressingly the witnesses asked. An old man from the village theorised, that the woman could be a
princess of a foreign realm, who married at her homeland. But when she had an affair with a townsman after marriage, it caused a
scandal and the lover was killed for punishment. The princess was banned from home, for she enjoyed lots of
sympathy, so she escaped the
death penalty. Instead, she might have been exposed in that
utsuro-bune to leave her to destiny. If this should be correct, the box may contain the head of the woman's deceased lover. In the past, a very similar object with a woman was washed ashore on a close-by beach. During that incident, a small board with a pinned head was found. The content of the box could therefore be the same, which would certainly explain why she protects it so much. It would cost lots of money and time to investigate the woman and her boat. Since it seems to be
tradition to expose those boats at sea, the townspeople thought they should bring the woman back to the
utsuro-bune and let her drift away. The townspeople were frightened. In a different version, the lady from the hollow boat stays where she landed and grows to old age. The fishermen reassembled the
utsuro-bune, placed the woman in it, and set it to drift away into the ocean. From human sight it might be cruel, but it seems to be her predetermined destiny.
Ume no chiri On March 24, 1803, at the beach of in the Hitachi province, a strange 'boat' was washed ashore. It reminded the witnesses of a rice cooking pot, around its middle it had a thickened rim. It was also coated with black paint and it had four little windows on four sides. The windows had bars and they were clogged with tree resin. The lower part of the boat was protected by brazen plates which looked to be made of
iron of the highest western quality. The height of the boat was 3.33 m (10.83 ft) and its breadth was 5.41 m (17.75 ft). and .The investigation started in 1844, and continued in 1925, and 1962.
Other legends concerning utsuro-bune A well known Japanese legend is that of the origin of the
Kōno clan of the
Iyo Province. In the 7th century, a fisherman named from
Gogo island found a 13-year-old girl inside an
utsuro-bune drifting at sea. He brought her to land, where she told him that she was the daughter of the
Chinese emperor and that she had been forced to flee to escape her stepmother. The fisherman named her ("princess Wake") and raised her, before she married an imperial prince of
Iyo province and gave birth to a son named , the ancestor of the Kōno clan. A part of this folktale held that she was responsible for bringing the first
silk cocoons to Japan. Princess Wake is still worshiped at the
Funakoshi Wakehime Shinto shrine in the village of Funakoshi on Gogo island. Yet another legend that shares a lot of similarities with the story about "
Wakehime" is the legend of the "Golden Princess"
Konjiki-hime, of which there are several variations. But the common element is that a fisherman finds a girl set adrift in a boat, who explains that she is "a princess from India." She repays the kindness of the fisherman and his wife bestowing on them the secrets of sericulture. == Interpretations ==