Who Is Kintaro? The Strong Boy of Mount Ashigara and the Warrior Behind Him

On a shelf in early May, among the Boys' Day decorations, sits a small doll: a round-faced child in a red apron, an axe in hand, a bear at his side. He is there to wish a boy strength. Few people who set him out stop to ask where he came from.

The answer is odd. The child on the shelf and the warrior in the old books are joined by later tradition, but they do not belong to one century. One is a retainer named in medieval story collections. The other is a boy of the Edo stage, printmakers and picture books. This page separates them, shows what each source actually says, and marks the places where the sources disagree.

Two figures behind one name

The National Diet Library's Japan Search gallery on Kintaro is careful about this. It says the Konjaku Monogatari Shu, a twelfth-century tale anthology, names a retainer called Kimitoki in the service of Minamoto no Yorimitsu, and that the Kokon Chomonju of 1254 lists him among Yorimitsu's four loyal retainers. That is the warrior, later called Sakata no Kintoki.

Whether that man was a real person is another matter. Wikipedia says only that the hero is "supposedly" based on one. A Japanese-language reference work, which we could only read through an automated summary, calls his existence doubtful and points to a palace guard named Shimotsuke no Kintoki in Fujiwara no Michinaga's diary as the likely seed. We did not check the diary. Read the warrior and the child as two strands, not one biography.

How the childhood story entered print

The childhood tale is later. The Diet Library cites two early modern works, Zen Taiheiki (1681) and Koeki Zokusetsu Ben (1715). In them the boy lives in the Ashigara hills with a mountain witch until he is discovered at twenty-one by Yorimitsu, who gives him the warrior's name.

The Diet Library says that after Chikamatsu's 1712 play the name Kaidomaru became well known, and that from the middle of the Edo period "Kintaro" was common knowledge. Another reference work, again read only through an automated summary, dates the first printed use of the name Kintaro to 1765. We did not see that book, so treat the year as unconfirmed.

The mother in the mountains

The mountain witch, the yamauba, is the heart of the Edo tale. The Diet Library records one account of the birth: she dreamed of a red dragon, woke to thunder, and found she was with child. The gallery adds that the boy was therefore thought to be a child of the thunder god, with red skin and a broad axe as signs of that descent. These are that source's readings of the symbols. Wikipedia notes that some sources name Raijin for the dragon.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds several woodblock prints by Kitagawa Utamaro, around 1795, of the witch and her son, among them Yamauba and Kintaro (JP980). Prints like these show how the pairing became a picture before it became a nursery tale.

Not every telling keeps her. Wikipedia lists a princess named Yaegiri in one account and a mother who fled a family feud in another. In Ozaki's 1908 retelling the mother is the widow of a soldier named Kintoki who fled to Ashigara, and the villager she meets is a vassal of Lord Raiko in disguise.

A children's version in 1908

Ozaki's retelling shows the tale as a Meiji child might have met it. Her Kintaro is eight when he can fell trees as fast as the woodcutters. He has no human playmates, so he learns the speech of animals and takes the bear, the deer, the monkey and the hare as his messengers. In the best-known scene he holds a wrestling match for them and awards rice dumplings as prizes. Then he uproots a tree to bridge a river.

A disguised woodcutter, who turns out to be a vassal of Lord Raiko, has been watching. The boy is taken to the capital and made chief of the Four Braves. Soon after, he is sent against a man-eating monster and beheads it. The story does not mention the red body.

Mount Ashigara, a shrine and a doll

The hills involved lie near Mount Ashigara on the Kanagawa and Shizuoka border. At the foot of Mount Kintoki stands Kintoki Shrine, dedicated, according to the Hakone Tourist Association, to Sakata no Kintoki, with a festival every Children's Day on May 5. That is living local worship and it should be kept apart from the tale.

Other places make their own claims. The Japanese reference work lists traditions in Oyama in Shizuoka, Minamiashigara in Kanagawa, Nagahama in Shiga and Katsuo in Okayama. We could not weigh them.

Nippon.com says dolls of Kintaro are displayed on Boys' Day as a symbol of health and strength. The Diet Library adds that Kintaro, like Momotaro, took the shape of a child hero in early modern times, and that dolls for Boys' Day soon followed.

Common mistakes and mix-ups

• "Kintaro is a Heian-period boy." The childhood tale appears in early modern works; the Heian-period figure is the retainer.
• "His mother is always a mountain witch." Ozaki's mother is a widow, and Wikipedia lists a princess and a refugee mother.
• "Kintaro and Sakata no Kintoki are the same man in the sources." The legend merges them; the early texts name only the retainer.
• "Yorimitsu always finds him." In Ozaki's book a vassal does, and Yorimitsu, called Raiko, makes him Chief of the Four Braves.
• "His great deed is certain." The Diet Library says he took part in the defeat of Shuten-doji; that belongs to the legend.

Questions for any Kintaro image or tale

• Is the child called Kintaro, or Kaidomaru?
• Is his skin red, and does he carry an axe or a bear?
• Who is his mother, and is the mountain witch present?
• Who finds him, and what name does he receive?
• Was it printed in the Edo period, or retold for modern children?

A doll on a shelf cannot answer these. The books and prints can.