Japanese mountain legend, Davis retelling
Visu's Lost Years
Visu leaves his household and climbs Fuji, where he follows a fox and finds two women playing go. He watches what seems to him a summer afternoon, although the account says three hundred years pass. Returning to the site of his home, he discovers that his family is long dead and recognises the cost of neglecting them.
Also known as Visu's Return · Visu on Mount Fuji · Visu's three hundred years
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In the sources
An afternoon lasting centuries
TraditionalVisu is absorbed by two women playing go beside a brook. Davis says he sits there for three hundred years, experiencing it as an afternoon; when he speaks, the women turn into foxes and flee.
A vanished household
TraditionalVisu returns with a long beard, stiff limbs and a crumbled axe handle. An old woman tells him his family and their descendants are buried, and he laments having prayed while his dependants needed his labour.
Context & interpretation
This entry follows the combined legend Davis presents in his Fuji chapter; Davis says he joins material that he considers probably Chinese in origin. It is not evidence of physical time travel or a dated historical encounter. The comparison with Rip van Winkle is the author's framing, rather than an assertion that the stories have an identical origin.
Original passages
Source 1
Myths and Legends of Japan
for three hundred years, though to him it was but a summer's afternoonOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: Chapter IX, printed p. 138
Read directly from the active prepared scan; line breaks and spacing normalised.
- Edition
- IMJ-0052-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0052-E001-P0155
- Original scan leaf
- 176
- Recorded leaf number
- 176
- Current Reader position
- 154
- Reader verification
- Source-preserving update confirmed
Source 2
Myths and Legends of Japan
if you pray, work too !Open this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: Chapter IX, printed p. 139
Read directly from the active prepared scan; line breaks and spacing normalised.
- Edition
- IMJ-0052-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0052-E001-P0157
- Original scan leaf
- 179
- Recorded leaf number
- 179
- Current Reader position
- 156
- Reader verification
- Source-preserving update confirmed
