Kintaro of Ashigara Legend

The Kintaro legend tells of a boy of extraordinary strength born to a yamauba (also called Yaegiri) in the Ashigara mountains of Sagami Province (present-day Minamiashigara, Kanagawa). The child wrestles bears and boars in the mountains, and is later discovered by Minamoto no Yorimitsu, who takes him into service as Sakata no Kintoki, one of the Four Heavenly Kings (shitenno) of Yorimitsu. In this capacity he joins the subjugation of Shuten-doji at Mount Oe. The narrative connects a mountain-child motif to the historical Yorimitsu retainer tradition recorded in the Konjaku Monogatarishu (twelfth century) and Kokon Chomonju (1254). Early-modern otogi-zoshi such as Kinpei-bon and Edo-period picture books fixed the now-familiar image of a child in a red haragake holding an axe; Meiji-era retellings by Iwaya Sazanami and Kusuyama Masao established the standard form.