Urashima Taro Legend

Urashima Taro is the tale of Urashima-no-ko, a young man of Tango Province, who catches a five-colored turtle at sea. The turtle changes into a beautiful woman, and together they go to the everlasting land (Tokoyo, the sea-god's palace), where they spend three years (variants differ). Longing for home, Urashima-no-ko asks to return, and the woman gives him a tamatebako (jeweled-comb box) as a parting token, telling him never to open it. On the shore, he finds that several centuries have passed and no one he knew remains. Breaking the taboo and opening the box, white smoke rises and he is instantly turned old, or vanishes into the smoke. The Tango Fudoki fragment "Urashima-no-ko" (after 713 CE, quoted in the Shaku Nihongi), the Nihon Shoki, Emperor Yuryaku year 22, and the Man'yoshu, scroll 9, the poem of Takahashi no Mushimaro are the ancient sources. Medieval Otogizoshi "Urashima Taro" added the prologue of sparing and being repaid by the turtle and gave the tale its moral cast, the basis of early-modern folktale versions. Urashima Shrine in Honjo-hama, Ine Town, Yosa District, Kyoto, enshrines Urashima-no-ko as principal deity.