【Translation】Women in the Water "Bride/Spider Spider"

If you are a reader of Jingji Xiayan, you may have the impression that one of his Jingjitang series of novels is called "The Law of the Net Bride". After I read that book, I was very curious about what the original legend of the net bride was, so I went to check it. It turns out that there are several interesting legends.

First of all, the term Jyorougumo (じょろうぐも, Jyorougumo) is actually the result of adding Chinese characters (familiar characters) to it according to the pronunciation of "girl spider". So the pronunciation is still girl spider, but it is written as a net bride.

Because of such a peculiar name, when biologically referring to the biological "girl spider", it will not be written as "network bride", but directly called "ジョロウグモ" (girl spider) in katakana.

In Toriyama Shiyan's "Painting Hundred Ghosts Night Walk", the net bride appears as a spider woman who manipulates countless small fire-breathing spiders. (As shown in the picture below. By the way, is this a circus performance?)

Honestly, though, this image has it's rather subtle aspects.

Because Toriyama actually only drew the back of a woman in a kimono, as well as her hairy hands and feet. But on closer inspection, she only has six feet. Spiders should have eight legs. (Or hidden in a kimono?)

In this way, it is better to call it a cockroach woman than a spider woman? In the end is the spider woman scary or the cockroach woman scary, to be honest, it's a bit difficult for me to decide . (Khan laughs)

In a word, the following is the content taken from the entry of the Japanese Wiki "Network Bride". If you want to reprint the text, please indicate the source. If you find it interesting, you are also welcome to clap your hands a lot. Thank you for reading~

There are five legends about online brides circulating around the world:

Legend 1: The Edo period's "Su Naicao", titled "Think before you act suddenly when things happen suddenly".

One day, in front of a young samurai, a woman about 19 or 20 years old suddenly appeared holding a child. She said to the child, "That person is you Baba! Go! Let Baba hug me! "

The samurai saw that the woman was a monster, and immediately cut her with his sword. So the woman fled into the patio. The next day, a one- or two-meter-long girl spider was found in the patio, wounded and dead, as well as the corpses of countless humans killed and devoured by the girl spider.

(Translation: Are you sure it's not your illegitimate child? Mr. Samurai)

(Samurai: Don't lie to me! I love MILFs! (!!!!???))

Legend 2: "Hundred Tales of Taiping" in the Edo period, titled "Sun Liu was deceived by a girl spider".

In the summer of Takata, Sakushu (now Okayama Prefecture), a man named Sun Liu dozed off at the Enlang at home. At this time, a woman in her fifties appeared in front of her, saying that her daughter was in love with Sun Liu, and then invited Sun Liu to her home.

In that house, a 16- or 17-year-old girl proposed to Sun Liu. But Sun Liu rejected her on the grounds that she already had a family. The girl grabbed him tightly and said reluctantly, "Yesterday, my mother was almost killed by you. Even so, I went to find you today. Do you want to ignore this intention?"

After Sun Liu was confused and fled in a hurry, the house disappeared and found himself still on the edge corridor. According to his wife, Sun Liu has been sleeping on the edge corridor. Sun Liu wondered if it was a dream, and when he looked around, he found that a little girl spider had formed an astonishingly large spider web under the eaves. So Sun Liucai suddenly remembered the incident of chasing the spider yesterday.

Legend 3: Joren Falls, Izu City, Shizuoka Prefecture

Legend has it that the owner of Jinglian Waterfall is a lady spider.

One day, when a man was resting by the waterfall, countless silk threads entangled his feet. So the man tied silk thread to a nearby stake, and the stake was dragged into the water little by little. It seems that the girl spider is planning to drag the man into the water. Since then, people in the village have been afraid to approach the waterfall because they are afraid of lady spiders.

But one day, a woodcutter from out of town, unaware of this, fell into the bottom of the waterfall while chopping wood. Just as the woodcutter dived under the waterfall in order to retrieve the axe, a beautiful girl appeared. The girl returned the axe to him and explained, "Please don't tell anyone what you see here!".

After that, the woodcutter kept his promise and didn't say a word, but at the same time he felt like there was something in his chest and lived every day. Later, at a certain banquet, the woodcutter took advantage of his drunkenness to tell the whole story, because he finally let go of the peace of mind he was concerned about and let the woodcutter fall asleep. However, he never opened his eyes again.

In other versions, at the end of the story, when the woodcutter has finished speaking, he walks outward as if drawn by an invisible thread. The next day, his dead body was floating on the water under the Jinglian Waterfall.

(Translation: I thought for a moment that the classic "gold axe or silver axe, which is the axe you dropped?" will appear!)

In addition, there is another version of the story of the woodcutter about Jinglian Waterfall: the girl the woodcutter met under the waterfall fell in love and ran to the waterfall almost every day, but his body became weaker and weaker. A monk from a nearby monastery, suspicious of him, "Isn't it possible that you are being targeted by a spider, the master lady of the waterfall?", went to the waterfall with him and started chanting.

(Translation: The monk's name should not be Fahai, right?)

As a result, from the bottom of the abyss, the spider silk that the lady spider stretched out to the woodcutter appeared. The monk shouted, and the silk thread disappeared. However, even though the woodcutter knew that the woman's true identity was a girl spider, he still did not give up and planned to ask the tengu in the mountains for permission to marry. But Tengu refused the request.

Even so, the woodcutter still refused to give up, and finally walked towards the waterfall again, and then he was entangled by the spider silk protruding from the bottom of the waterfall and disappeared at the bottom of the waterfall.

Legend 4: Sendai Xianyuan

The legend of the person who was almost dragged into the waterfall by the girl spider replaced himself with a wooden stake.

It is said that after the stake was dragged into the water, the voice of "It's really smart! It's really smart!" (Xian い Xian い) came from out of nowhere, which is where the name Xianyuan came from.

(Translation: Pronounced in Taiwanese: Ao! Ao! www)

Since then, in Kenyuan area, the girl spider has been believed as a god who relieves water disasters, and there are also monuments and torii gates inscribed with the "spirit of magic spiders".

One day, at the house of a man named Genbei, who lived by the waterfall, a beautiful woman who was transformed into an eel came to visit. She said that she was going to attack the girl spider at the bottom of the abyss tomorrow, but she was afraid that she was weak, so she hoped that Genbei could shout, "Genbei is here!" to help out.

Yuanbei agreed, but when things came to an end, he was so afraid that he would hide at home the next day. As a result, the eel was defeated by the girl spider, and Genbei went mad and died.

Legend 5: Legends from Tokushima Prefecture

In one village, the father of the landowner was very happy that his son's marriage had been finalized. At this time, a blind beauty traveled to the landlord's house and asked, "I'm lost, can you let me stay for one night?". Hearing this, both father and son thought she was pitiful, so they agreed. The next morning, the woman set off without exception.

However, since that day, the son's face has gotten worse and worse, and his body has become thinner and thinner. And strange rumors began to circulate in the village: every night at three o'clock in the ugly (about 2:00 to 2:30 in the middle of the night), a woman would visit her son's room. The worried father asked his son if something had happened.

As a result, the son said: "I dreamed that a woman would visit me every night and look at me with very tender eyes". (!!!) Hearing this, that night, the father hid and peeked and found that the traveling woman who had moored before had entered his son's room. The next day, the father recruited several outstanding hunters from the village to hide on the patio of his son's room. As expected, the woman appeared again that night.

And the woman appeared in the form of a huge girl spider, sucking the blood of her sleeping son. Although the hunters who hid were trembling with fear, they still fired bows and arrows at the lady spider in unison. The girl spider screamed and screamed immediately, but she still wanted to escape with countless arrows in her body, but the hunters surrounded her and planned to give a fatal blow. At this moment, the awakened son desperately pleaded, "Please spare her life!".

Upon seeing this, the father told the hunters to back off and said to the spider girl, "Because my son said this, I will spare your life, but please go back to the mountain for me, and don't come here again!" The girl who heard this remark The spider, once looking at his son, dragged his injured body back to the mountain.

The next day, the father told his son a story he had heard since he was a child: A long time ago, there was a beautiful woman who agreed to marry a man. But the day before the wedding, the woman was abandoned because the man changed his mind. So, the woman entered the deep mountain and turned into a huge girl spider because of her hatred and sadness for the man.

Since then, there has been a rumor that the girl spider will hunt and kill a man who is about to marry. Since then, I don't know if it's because the girl spider who wants to kill the landlord's son, thinks it's despicable to try to kill the savior and feels ashamed, and has never appeared in the village again.

Translation: I'm glad~ I'm glad~, but this sister, you kill someone's fiancé, doesn't that turn more women into spiders? An Ngan, right?

In this way, whether it is Chinese or Japanese legends, women can become snakes, spiders, and prajna since ancient times. The image of men seems to be nothing but ghosts, and it is quite stable. Of course, it can also be said that because the narrators of past history are all his stories, they only show the fear of men's anger (unknown and difficult to understand!) towards a woman, thus bringing about distortion of the image. But isn't it also because men have any resentment and can fight each other outright, so there is no need to turn into an alien to seek revenge?