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一勇斎国芳(歌川国芳)筆「坂田怪童丸」 /

Kintaro

A legendary boy with great strength said to be raised in the remote mountainous region Ashigarayama and later to be the man named Sakata no Kintoki

Kintaro was a legendary boy with immense strength who was raised by a mountain witch in Ashigarayama, the mountainous region near Mount Ashigara, located on the border between present-day Kanagawa Prefecture and Shizuoka Prefecture. Having proven his military prowess by participating in the extermination of the Mount Oe demon Shuten Doji, he became one of the four loyal retainers of Minamoto no Yorimitsu.

 

As an adult, Kintaro took the adult name of Sakata no Kintoki (in ancient times, Kimitoki). The name Kimitoki appears in the literature as one of Yorimitsu's retainers in Konjaku monogatari shu (Anthology of Tales from the Past, 12th century), and as one of his four loyal retainers in Kokon chomonju (Collection of Notable Tales Old and New, 1254).

 

The story of Kintaro is a tale of the life of a hero. According to the early modern works Zen taihei ki (A Record of the Earlier Great Peace, 1681) and Koeki zokusetsu ben (A Refutation of Vulgar Legends for the Benefit of the Public, 1715), Kintaro lived in the mountainous Ashigarayama region with a mountain witch, but at 21 he was discovered by Yorimitsu and was given the name Sakata no Kintoki, and at 36 he participated in the extermination of the demon Shuten Doji. He never married his whole life, and after Yorimitsu's death, he disappeared in the Ashigarayama region.

 

His birth, it is said, came about as follows: the mountain witch dreamt that she had intercourse with a red dragon, and when she woke because of the thunder, she was already pregnant with Kintaro. Since a hero with tremendous strength must be divine, Kintaro was thought to be the child of the Thunder God and the mountain witch.

 

Legend has it that Kintaro was red all over his body, carried a broadax, and rode a bear. Red symbolized his having a divine spirit, the broadax symbolized the weapon of the thunder god, and the bear symbolized his being born and raised in the mountains.

 

From early modern times, Kintaro, like Momotaro, took on the appearance of a child hero, and soon there were Kintaro dolls being made for Boy's Day (the forerunner of Children's Day). After Komochi yamauba (Mountain Witch with Child), a jorurui (storytelling accompanied on the shamisen) by Chikamatsu Monzaemon, appeared in 1712, kaidomaru (Kintaro) became a well-known appellation. From the middle of the Edo period (1603-1867), the name Kintaro became common knowledge.

 

Finally, Ashigarayama is the mountainous region located north of Mount Kintoki (1215.5 m.), also called Mount Inohana, situated in the outer volcanic rim of Mount Hakone. Moreover, Shinpen Sagami no kuni fudo kiko (New Edition of the Record of the Culture and Geography of Sagami Province, 1841) calls the area below Ashigara District (the birthplace of Sakata no Kintoki) Kintokiyama.

Related People, Things and Events

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Sakata no Kintoki

Kintaro dolls, etc.

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Institutions Holding Related Materials

  • 静岡県小山町が運営するサイト「小山町観光情報」より。「金太郎ストーリー」(誕生から親元を離れるまで)や「金太郎ゆかりの地」などが紹介されています。

  • 神奈川県南足柄市HPより。「金太郎伝説」や全国の「金太郎伝説地の紹介」などとともに、生家跡や遊び石などの伝承地が載っています。

  • 岡山県観光連盟が運営するサイト「岡山観光WEB」より。岡山県勝央町(しょうおうちょう)にある神社。源頼光が坂田金時を葬ったといわれる地に建てられました。

  • The National Diet Library (NDL), founded in 1948, is the library which belongs to the Diet. The NDL assists the activities of the National Diet. The Library collects and conserves materials and information both from Japan and abroad, serving as a foundation of knowledge and culture and providing library services to administrative and judicial entities and Japanese citizens.

  • As Japan’s representative museum, Tokyo National Museum collects, preserves, displays, and researches the cultural properties of Asia with a focus on Japan, and also provides educational programs.

  • Kyoto National Museum collects, preserves, displays, researches and provides educational programs focusing on cultural properties from Heian- through to Edo- period Japan, when the capital was located there.

  • he National Museum of Ethnology, Japan (Minpaku) is the only research institute of cultural anthropology and ethnology in the world, that is equipped with one of the world’s largest museum facilities as well as post-graduate educational facilities.

  • The National Archives is an organization for preserving, as historical materials, public records and archives of importance transferred from state organs, and providing them for public use, with the aim of achieving appropriate preservation and use of such public records and archives that are kept in the National Archives or state organs as historical materials.

  • This institution strives to serve researchers in the field of Japanese literature as well as those working in various other humanities fields, by collecting in one location a massive archive of materials related to Japanese literature from all corners of the country.

  • Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art was founded as the successor of the Aichi Prefectural Art Gallery, which originally opened in Sakae, the center of Nagoya City, Aichi Prefecture, in 1955. The museum opened in 1992 as part of the Aichi Arts Center, an urban cultural complex, and has established a wide-range collection of approximately 8,000 items, centered on works of art of the twentieth century. The Museum has also organized numerous exhibition of a wide-range of themes. The Museum has actively worked to develop and communicate new aspects of art and culture to the public, based on its core mission to serve as the primary art museum of the Chubu region.

  • From 1996 to 2018, Aomori Prefecture has compiled the history of itself and published 36 volumes of "The History of Aomori Prefecture" and 14 volumes of "The History of Aomori Prefecture Series". These have covered a wide range of fields and long timeframes: Nature, Archeology, Ancient, Medieval, Early modern, Modern, Folklore and Cultural property. In the process of compiling, with the cooperation of many institutions and persons, we recorded or collected various historical materials. After compilation, we are publishing these historical materials through “Digital Archives of the History of Aomori Prefecture”.

External Links

  • 立命館大学アート・リサーチセンター「日本の伝説 異界展」の「公時」より。

  • 神奈川県小田原市HPの「小田原デジタルアーカイブ」より。金太郎についての浮世絵が載り、浮世絵の部分図についての解説もある。

  • 公文教育研究会が運営するサイト。トップページ左上の検索画面に「金太郎」と入力し、浮世絵を検索する。

References

  1. サンプルページ「金太郎」の項
  2. 「金太郎」の項
  3. 「金太郎→坂田金時」の項
  4. 「金太郎」の項
  5. 「金太郎→坂田公時(さかたのきんとき)」の項
  6. 「金太郎」の項