Mythology / the-tale-of-urashima-taro
Facts about The Tale of Urashima Taro
- 03
A magical jeweled box called the tamatebako serves as the plot device that causes Urashima Taro's rapid aging upon opening it after returning to the mortal world.
- 02
Three hundred years pass in the undersea palace while Urashima Taro experiences only three days, a temporal distortion central to the tale's exploration of mortality and time's relativity.
- 01
In Japan's oldest written collection of myths, the Kojiki from 712 CE, Urashima Taro's undersea adventure does not appear, suggesting the tale developed later during the medieval period.