Mega Septiawanti

1209618004

18 SA

Children and Young-Adult Literature

Tsuru No Ongaeshi (The Grateful Crane) and Legenda Danau Toba Analysis

In this essay, I will talk about the analysis between the two stories who come from different
countries, but have the same patterns. The first story is Tsuru no Ongaeshi (The Grateful Crane).
This story is a folklore from Japan.

The story starts from a scene when long, long ago in a far off land there lived a young man. One
day, while working on his farm, a brilliant white crane came swooping down and crashed to the
ground at his feet. The man noticed an arrow pierced through one of its wings. Taking pity on the
crane, he pulled out the arrow and cleaned the wound. Thanks to his care the bird was soon able
to fly again. The young man sent the crane back to the sky, saying, "Be careful to avoid hunters."
The crane circled three times over his head, let out a cry as if in thanks, and then flew away.

As the day grew dark the young man made his way home. When he arrived, he was surprised by
the sight of a beautiful woman whom he had never seen before standing at the doorway.
"Welcome home. I am your wife," said the woman. The young man was surprised and said, "I
am very poor, and cannot support you." The woman answered, pointing to a small sack, "Don't
worry, I have plenty of rice," and began preparing dinner. The young man was puzzled, but the
two began a happy life together. And the rice sack, mysteriously, remained full always.

One day the wife asked the young man to build her a weaving room. When it was completed, she
said, "You must promise never to peek inside." With that, she shut herself up in the room. The
young man waited patiently for her to come out. Finally, after seven days, the sound of the loom
stopped and his wife, who had become very thin, stepped out of the room holding the most
beautiful cloth he had ever seen. "Take this cloth to the marketplace and it will sell for a high
price," said the wife. The next day the young man brought it to town and, just as she said, it sold
for many coins. Happy, he returned home.

The wife then returned to the room and resumed weaving. Curiosity began to overtake the man,
who wondered, "How can she weave such beautiful cloth with no thread?" Soon he could stand it
no longer and, desperate to know his wife's secret, peeked into the room. To his great shock, his
wife was gone. Instead, a crane sat intently at the loom weaving a cloth, plucking out its own
feathers for thread.

The bird then noticed the young man peeking in and said, "I am the crane that you saved. I
wanted to repay you so I became your wife, but now that you have seen my true form I can stay
here no longer." Then, handing the man the finished cloth, it said, "I leave you this to remember
me by." The crane then abruptly flew off into the sky and disappeared forever.

From the brief of the story above, we can conclude that Tsuru no Ongaeshi tells us about how a
crane paid something in return to her savior, but at the end, it made a big mistake when the
husband didn’t keep the promise. This pattern is also applied to the Legenda of Danau Toba
story from Indonesia folklore. You helped someone, they paid something to you in return, they
made you hold on to their promise, you broke the promise, and then boom, it turned to be a great
mistake.

The similarity between those two stories is they used the same theme that narrate ‘the broken
promise leading to a great problem’. In those two stories, both of the two main characters are
incarnating from animals. Meanwhile, the differences in here are the animal’s form is different.
While the Tsuru no Ongaeshi one is crane, the Danau Toba one is golden fish. While
Wakamono, the husband from Tsuru no Ongaeshi, broke his promise to his wife (Musume),
because he peeked into the room where his wife was weaving in her crane’s form, Toba from
Legenda Danau Toba leaked his wife secret that she’s a golden fish to his son (Samosir). The
two stories’ ending is also different. Tsuru no Ongaeshi ended with Musume left Wakamono
forever, in the other hand Danau Toba ended with water whelming the land in Danau Toba story
and it became Lake Toba.

From Brunvand’s theory, we can find some local colors in Tsuru no Ongaeshi. For instance,
there is folk naming in this story, such as names like Wakamono and Musume which is how
Japanese name usually would be. There’s also folk custom in this story that’s called as Giri. Giti
is a value which very much uphold in reciprocity to someone’s kindness which is reflected when
Musume wanted to pay Wakamono’s kindness in Tsuru no Ongaeshi.

From Grobman theory, how the author acquired the folk material used is as a native participant
in the tradition. The author of Tsuru no Ongaeshi remains unknown, but I got this story from a
website called web-japan.org. The writer’s name from the website Tomoji Noda, who is also a
native Japanese. So that’s why the folk material used of this story is as a native participant of the
story, because, even though the original author is anonymous, but the one who rewrites the story
is a native Japanese.

Another Grobman’s theory that’s depicted in this story from the variable above that can be
applied to describe how the author uses the folk materials in the story is included to give
verisimilitude and local color. Tomoji Noda used this method to write the English translation of
this story on the website because he didn’t change anything from the original story. He also still
adding many local colors to this story as already explained before. The names and the custom
still existed in the story even if it’s already translated to English. When we read the story, it still
feels Japanese-like and we can get new perpectives from Japanese culture.

There is also one more theory which is from Marchen. Marchen’s theory is a magic tale pattern
almost point for point or an adventure story with a single hero. But unfortunaltely, not all of it
happened in Tsuru no Ongaeshi. The only thing happened from Marchen’s theory that can be
applied into the story is when the supernatural world involves. In this case, this was when
Musume was turned into a crane when Wakamono broke his promise. This also applied to
Legenda Danau Toba story when Toba broke his promise to his wife and resulted to the land
flooded with water.
References:

https://web-japan.org/kidsweb/folk/tsuru/tsuru01.html

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304423105_Nilai_Didaktis_dalam_Dongeng_Anak_Je
pang_Analisis_Dongeng_Tsuru_No_Ongaeshi