When walking around Miho no matsubara, a famous coastal pine grove in Shizuoka Prefecture (Japan), you feel a special atmosphere whether the weather is cooperating to provide a splendid view of Mt. Fuji. It is a scenic place first written about over 1300 years ago in the Kojiki. There, the eerie twisting shapes of the black pines and the echos of the famous tales stir the imagination.
Two famous stories associated with the area are the crane maiden and Hagoromo (a feathered robe endowing the power of flight).
In the Crane Maiden tale (Tsuru no Ongaeshi or The Crane Returns a Favor), a young man comes across a crane caught in a hunter's trap. Moved by the crane's suffering, the man frees the bird and lets it escape. Later, the young man encounters a beautiful woman who claims to be the crane he had saved.
After that, she teaches him the art of weaving exquisite and intricate clothes, using her supernatural powers in secret.
In the first version of the story, the wife reveals that the clothes were made with her own feathers, and she must reclaim them to return to the sky. In the second version, out of curiosity, the man breaks a promise and looks in on her as she is weaving the cloth from her feathers.
Either way, she returns to the sky.
The story expresses the importance of compassion and the belief that good deeds, even towards non-human beings, can be rewarded unexpectedly. The tale also suggests the interplay between the human and the supernatural realms
In the Hagoromo story, a fisherman discovers the crane maiden's gown while she is bathing. The fisherman takes her feathered robe, preventing her from transforming back into a crane and flying away. The crane maiden pleads with the fisherman to return her robe, but he refuses, hoping to keep her on Earth as his wife. After some time, the crane maiden is finally able to convince the fisherman to return the feathered gown to her. She puts on the robe and flies back to the heavens, leaving the fisherman behind.
This second story suggests the boundaries between the human and spiritual realms, and the need to honor the autonomy and true nature of the supernatural realm, even at a personal cost.
Skyler’s “the crane maiden returns” is based on a photo that a friend took of Miho Beach. The computer graphic work points out that things haven’t changed very much. This time around, the human takes her photo instead of her gown. There remains an inadequate display of awe or even respect.
