The Formation of the Witch Figure in Fairy Tales: The Case of Hansel and Gretel

Abstract

The term “witch” in Western folklore has historically referred to women who were the targets of oppression, as seen with the witch hunts and witch trials. On the other hand, witches in contemporary Japan are imagined as fiction, the product of a combination of various works and cultures. This Japanese image of witches is very different from the original idea of the witch as represented in fairy tales.

Witches in Japan were brought in from abroad and are thought to have undergone a Japanese shift in the course of translation. Within this context, when was the image of the Japanese witch formed?

From this perspective, in this paper, the author examines Japanese translations of Grimms’ Fairy Tales. First, 27 of the 210 Grimms’ Fairy Tales that had witches (or similar characters) were selected, followed by a review of 32 examples of translations of Hansel and Gretel, which is a representative work. The period of study spanned the Meiji period to the Showa pre-war period.

For the scope of this study, the word “witch” (majyo 魔女) was first used in a general translation of the Grimms’ Fairy Tales in 1916 (see Table 1) and of Hansel and Gretel in 1924. Although similar translations such as “sorcerer” (mahotsukai 魔法使い), “hag” (youba 妖婆), and “termagant” (onibaba 鬼婆) were also used transitionally, the standardized translation inclined towards the word “witch” during the Taisho period.

Previous research suggests that it was also during the Taisho period that the word “witch” came to be used for real women. Based on the findings of this research, the basis for such figurative expressions can be found in the fairy tales translated during this period. The character of the mysterious, elderly woman is thought to correspond to the image of the witch in fairy tales.