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運命の赤い糸 unmei no akai ito The Red Thread of Fate

運命の赤い糸, the red thread of fate: a Chinese cord on a fated pair's feet that became, in Japan, a thread on the little finger.

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Japanese Scroll of The Red Thread of Fate (unmei no akai ito) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
The Red Thread of Fate運命の赤い糸unmei no akai ito

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

運命の赤い糸 unmei no akai ito, the red thread of fate, is the modern Japanese name for a Chinese story, which the dictionaries enter under 赤縄 sekijō, the red cord: a man and a woman fated to marry are tied together from the start by a red cord no one can see [1][2]. Its source is the Tang tale 定婚店, from the ninth century and kept in the Taiping guangji 太平廣記 of 977–978, in which an old man reading by moonlight carries red cords to tie the feet of husband and wife; a second Chinese tale, in which a suitor draws his bride by a red silk thread, had run together with it in Chinese wording by the Yuan, as 古田島洋介 Koteshima Yōsuke showed in 1993 [3][4][5]. In Japan the cord was told in Japanese by 1706 and was in the hands of Japan's own gods of Izumo by 1821, and in every telling of the fated cord read for this history, Chinese, Japanese or English, before 1965, it binds the feet, the toes, the body or no part named [6][7]. What is Japanese and new is the red thread on the toe and then the finger: the phrase 運命の赤い糸 is in a search window of 1921 that names no part, the thread on the little toe of the right foot is first known in print, in this reading, in a story by 太宰治 Dazai Osamu of 1933, which also holds the earliest 赤い糸 古田島 had seen, and the little finger of the hand, the form most people know today, is in a novel of 1965 read in the library's search windows, and is called in 2016 our shared general understanding [8][9][10][11][12].

Overview

The sense. 運命 unmei is fate; 赤い akai, red; 糸 ito, thread [13]. The phrase has no entry of its own at kotobank: the 故事成語を知る辞典 sends it to 赤縄 and ends that entry 〔異形〕運命の赤い糸, variant form: 運命の赤い糸 [1][2]. Under 赤縄 the dictionaries tell the Tang story with the feet. デジタル大辞泉: 韋固という青年が異人に会い、袋の中に入っている赤縄で男女の足をつなぐ … 夫婦の縁を結ぶという赤い縄。転じて、夫婦の縁, the young man 韋固 meets a stranger who ties the feet of men and women with the red cords in his bag … the red cord that ties the bond of husband and wife; by extension, that bond; 精選版 日本国語大辞典: 夫婦となるべき男女は、早くから目に見えない赤い縄でお互いの足が繋がれており, a man and a woman who are to be husband and wife have their feet tied to each other early on by a red cord no one can see [2]. Weblio's 実用日本語表現辞典 defines the phrase without a body part: やがて結ばれるであろう男女をつないでいる、と信じられている糸。目には見えず、決して切れない, the thread believed to join a man and a woman who will one day be united; it cannot be seen, and it never breaks [14]. kotobank's 赤い糸 is only the title of a television drama of 2008 [15]. JMdict, the free Japanese–English dictionary, glosses both 赤い糸 and 運命の赤い糸 red string of fate and adds that in Chinese-Japanese folklore the string was tied around one little finger of each [16]; the Chinese tale and the Japanese dictionaries opened tie the feet.

The words. 糸 is thread, and figuratively what ties things together: デジタル大辞泉 gives （比喩的に）物事を結びつけるもの。「記憶の糸をたぐる」「運命の糸」, (figuratively) what ties things together: "to pull on the thread of memory", "the thread of fate" [17]. The Tang tale's word is 繩, a cord: 字通 gives the 説文's 索(なは)なり, a rope, and adds 大なるを索、小なるを繩という, the large is called 索, the small 繩 [18]; its 赤繩子 is a red cord [3], and the Japanese kept it as 赤縄, read sekijō in the Chinese way or akanawa in the Japanese, both with the feet [2]. The second Chinese tale's word is 絲, a silk thread: 字通 enters 糸, old form 絲, as いと、きいと、きぬいと, thread, raw silk, silk thread [17]; and its 紅絲 is a red silk thread [19]. The old man of the first tale became 月下老人 gekka rōjin, the old man under the moon, and, with a second Chinese go-between, the Japanese 月下氷人 gekka hyōjin, matchmaker [20][21].

The reading. Unmei no akai ito, an ordinary Japanese phrase read as written, うんめいのあかいいと [13].

The historical record

The old man under the moon

The book. The tale is from the 續玄怪錄 of 李復言 Li Fuyan, who lived about the middle of the ninth century; his book is lost, the Taiping guangji keeps some thirty of its tales, and a four-卷 print of the Southern Song survives under the title 續幽怪錄 [22]. The Taiping guangji was compiled by imperial order from 977 and finished in 978, printed in 981, and widely current only after a reprint of 1566 [23].

The tale. In the Taiping guangji it is called 定婚店, and set in 628. 韋固 Wei Gu, a young man looking for a wife, comes before dawn to an inn south of the city of 宋城 and finds an old man sitting on the steps with his bag, reading a book by the setting moon: it is 天下之婚牘, the marriage register of the world [24]. Asked what is in his bag, the old man answers, as the print of 1755 reads at the leaf: 赤繩子耳以繫夫婦之足及其坐則潛用相繫雖讐敵之家貴賤懸隔天涯從宦吳楚異鄉此繩一繫終不可逭君之脚已繫於彼矣他求何益, red cords, to tie the feet of husband and wife; when they sit together, I tie them secretly. Though the houses be enemies, though one be noble and the other base, though one serve in office at the edge of the world, or they come from Wu and from Chu, once this cord is tied it can never be escaped. Your feet are already tied to her; what use is looking elsewhere? [3]. The bride he is shown is the three-year-old daughter of a blind woman selling vegetables in the market; 韋固 sends a servant to stab her, and the blow falls between her brows. Fourteen years later he marries the niece of a provincial governor, who always wears an ornament between her brows; she is the same girl. The magistrate names the inn 定婚店 [24].

A cord, and the feet. The cord is 繩, and it ties 足 and 脚, the feet. Nothing in the tale is a thread, and nothing is a finger [3][4].

At birth, or when they sit. The four-卷 book, read in a print of 1853, differs from the Taiping guangji in one word that matters: 赤繩子耳以繫夫妻之足及其生則潛用相繫, red cords, to tie the feet of husband and wife; as soon as they are born, I tie them secretly [4]. 及其生, when they are born, against the Taiping guangji's 及其坐, when they sit together: in one book the cord is tied at birth, in the other, as the word reads, when they sit together. 劉金宝 Liu Jinbao quotes the 及其生 reading in 2014 [8].

An older cord. 古田島 found a still older tale, 閻庚 in the 広異記, in which an official of the underworld ties the feet of those who will marry with a thin cord; he does not claim it as the source, and says only that 〈赤い糸〉を動かぬ運命と観ずる「定婚店」に先立って、〈細い縄〉を結び替える話が世に現われていた, before 定婚店, which sees the red thread as unchangeable fate, a story of retying a thin cord had already appeared [25].

The red silk thread drawn by lot

The tale. The 開元天寶遺事, a book of anecdotes of the Tang court attributed to 王仁裕 Wang Renyu (880–956) [26], has a second story, 牽紅絲娶婦, he drew a red silk thread and took a wife. The chief minister 張嘉貞 (the Wikisource text writes 張嘉正) wants the young 郭元振 Guo Yuanzhen for a son-in-law and has his five daughters each hold out a silk thread before a curtain: 吾欲令五女各持一絲幔前，使子取便牽之，得者爲婚, I will have my five daughters each hold a thread before the curtain; you pull whichever you please, and the one you get you will marry. 遂牽一紅絲線，得第三女, he pulled a red silk thread and got the third daughter, who was beautiful [19]. Here the thread is silk, it is held in the hand, and it is drawn by chance, not tied by fate. The same chapter keeps the two words apart: in another anecdote red silk is twisted to make a cord, 紉紅絲爲繩 [19].

An early critic. In the twelfth century 洪邁 Hong Mai (1123–1202) [26] listed the book among 俗間所傳淺妄之書, shallow and foolish books passed around among the common people, and took this story as his proof: 郭元振 had died at the start of the reign of 明皇, and 張嘉貞 became chief minister ten years later, 後十年，嘉貞方作相 [27]. By those dates, he argued, the tale cannot have happened.

Thread and cord become one

In Chinese wording, by the Yuan. 古田島, in 1993, set the two tales side by side as the legend's two prototypes and followed them as they ran together: in the Yuan play 揚州夢 the cord ties the feet, 赤縄来繋足, and the old man of the moon pulls a red thread, 月老牽紅線, in the same act; and in the eighteenth-century novel 紅楼夢 the old man under the moon ties the couple's feet with a red silk thread, written both 紅絲 and 紅線 [5]. 紅楼夢's fifty-seventh chapter, read here in a collated text, has 薛姨媽 say it so, opening with a saying she calls old: 自古道：「千里姻緣一線牽」。管姻緣的有一位月下老人，預先注定，暗里只用一根紅絲把這兩個人的腳絆住, since old times it has been said, "a marriage a thousand li apart is drawn together by one thread." There is an old man under the moon who has charge of marriages; he settles them beforehand, and secretly, with just one red silk thread, he ties these two people's feet [28]. The novel circulated in manuscript from about 1754 and was printed in 1791 [29]. A thread now, and still the feet.

On a betrothal card, 1865. The missionary Justus Doolittle, fourteen years at Fuzhou, writing with special but not exclusive reference to Fuhchau, as his title page says, saw two long and large threads of red silk sent with the betrothal cards, and wrote down the explanation he was given: The Chinese, in explaining the use of the red thread, refer to a popular story relating to certain events said to have transpired some time during the Tang dynasty, and he tells 定婚店, with its old man's red cords, with which I tie the feet of those who are to become husband and wife. Then: The red silk thread indicates that the engagement of the parties in marriage is fixed and unalterable. In common parlance, it is said that their feet have been tied together, referring to the language found originally in the story above given [30]. By 1865, in the China Doolittle knew, chiefly Fuzhou, a red silk thread in a betrothal rite was explained by the tale of the red cord on the feet.

Into Japan

The handbooks. The tale came to Japan in Chinese handbooks printed here, among them 『書言故事大全』 and 『円機活法』, in Japanese prints of 1646 and 1656, as 古田島 shows in 1995 [31]. The 開元天寶遺事 itself was printed in Japan in 1639 [26].

1706, the oldest Japanese telling 古田島 knew. The oldest Japanese telling, by 古田島's account as 劉 gives it in 2014, is in 白梅園鷺水's 『御伽百物語』, printed in 宝永 3 (1706), in its tale 「宿世の縁」, a bond from a former life [8][32]; 古田島's own postscript of 1995 names it as earlier than 『ひとりね』 [31]. A boy of a shrine calls up a courtier, who, as the typeset of 1895 reads at the leaf, 左のたもとより赤き繩を一すじ出し梅秀か居たる方にむかひて。しばらく引むすぶやうにしたまひて後, drew one red cord from his left sleeve and, turning toward where 梅秀 sat, made for a while as if to pull it tight and tie it; he burns the cord in the lamp, beckons three times, and the girl appears; then he tells 梅秀 that 月下の老をめしよせかくまで短冊のぬしにひきあはするぞ, I have called up the old man under the moon and brought you this far to meet the writer of the poem-card [6]. The cord is red, the old man is the moon's, and no body part is named.

About 1725, the feet. 柳沢淇園's 『ひとりね』, written about 享保 10 (1725), retells the tale in Japanese, as 古田島 quotes it: 此袋の内には紅の縄一筋のみ有。是にて、其夫婦にならんといふやくそくの男と女の、あしと足をむすび置事也, in this bag there is only a red cord; with it I tie together the feet of the man and the woman who are promised to become husband and wife [31].

The thread drawn by lot, filed under the lottery. The Edo scholar 山岡浚明 (1712–1780), in his encyclopedia 『類聚名物考』, files the second tale under choosing a husband by lot: 西土にも女に糸を持せて物を隔てゝその糸を引得たる人を聟とせし事あり, in China too there was the custom of having the women hold threads from behind a screen and taking as husband the man who drew one, and he quotes it through the 書言故事 [33][34]. He likens it to the 福引 of his own day, the New Year game of pulling hidden cords for prizes [35].

1771, a red thread and a white, on the stage. In the puppet play 『妹背山婦女庭訓』, first staged in 1771 [36], the girl お三輪 brings two balls of thread, red and white, offered at Tanabata; she has learned that to keep a lover's heart from changing 白い糸赤い糸、苧環に針を附け、結び合せて祈る, you fix a needle to a ball of white thread and of red, tie them together and pray; and she gives him the red: 紅い糸をお前に渡し、白い糸をわたしが持ち、契りも長き願ひの糸, the red thread I give to you, the white I keep: a thread of prayer, as long as our vow, and the chorus calls it 千代の仲人, the go-between of a thousand ages (a kabuki text of 1931, read at the leaf) [37]. It is a vow two lovers make by a Tanabata custom, not a fate that a god ties; no source read joins it to the 赤縄 or to the modern phrase.

1776, the tale's own words. In 上田秋成's 『雨月物語』, the mother in 「吉備津の釜」 says, as a typeset of 1910 reads: 既に聘禮を納めし上、かの赤繩に繫ぎては、仇ある家、異なる域なりとも易ふべからずと聞くものを, once the betrothal gifts are given and they are tied by that red cord, though the houses be enemies or the lands far apart, it cannot be changed, so I have heard, with the ruby せきじよう [38]. 精選版 日本国語大辞典 gives this as the first use of 赤縄 it records [2]. Akinari's clause follows the Tang tale's own words, 雖讐敵之家 … 吳楚異鄉，此繩一繫，終不可逭 [3].

The gods of Izumo tie it

1821. In 十返舎一九's novel 『所緣の藤浪』, dated 文政 4 (1821) by the national catalogue of early books [39][40], a chapter opens, as the typeset of 1910 reads: 男女の緣は日の本の神〻。每歲出雲の大やしろにあつまり給ひて。それ〳〵に赤繩の因を。むすび給ふといひつたふ, it is handed down that the bonds of men and women are tied by the gods of Japan, who gather every year at the great shrine of Izumo and tie for each couple the bond of the red cord [7]. The Chinese cord is now in the hands of Japan's own marriage gods, and a groom taken from a far province or a bride taken from Tsukushi is, the text goes on, さだまれる緣, a bond fixed beforehand [7].

The senryū. The comic verses of 1814 to the 1830s that 古田島 collects joke about the 赤ィ縄, read in plain Japanese akai nawa, the red rope: a scolding mother-in-law snaps it, a child will not let it be cut, and in 1832 赤縄ハ出雲で神のこま結び, the red cord: the gods tie it at Izumo in a fast knot [31]. Still a cord, and a joke by then.

Into the dictionaries. J. C. Hepburn's Japanese–English dictionary has no entry for it in 1867 [41]; in 1872 it has Tsuki-no-okina ツキノオキナ, 月老, n. The god of marriage, called Takami-musubi, also Musubu-no-kami [42], the Chinese old man under the moon named as the native god of marriage. W. G. Aston, in 1905, writes: The Musubu no Kami of the present day is identified with the Chinese Gekkarōjin (moon-under-old-man), who presides over the fates of lovers [43].

Into English, 1865 to 1923

From Doolittle on, the English books read here tell the tale with the feet or with no part named. John Francis Davis, 1870: It is his particular business to tie together at their birth, with an invisible silken cord, all youths and maidens who are predestined for each other [44]. W. F. Mayers, 1874: the moon's old man ties together with an invisible red cord infants who are destined by fate to be joined in future wedlock [45]. J. N. Jordan, 1886, through Brewer: links with a silken cord all predestined couples [46]. C. Arendt, in Folk-Lore, 1890: the Yüch-hsia-lào'rh ("Old Man under the Moon"), who ties together, with an invisible red string, the feet of those who are destined by fate to become man and wife [47]. Henri Joly, in a book on Japanese art, 1908: GEKKAWO 月下翁. Poetical name of the God of Marriage: MUSUBI NO KAMI, YUEH LAO 月老, the Old Man under the Moon, who binds with a red silk thread the feet of lovers, and on the next page he sets the thread-drawing tale beside it [48]. Herbert Giles, 1912, under 繩: 赤繩繫足 their feet tied together by the red cord; under 月: 月老 the old man of the moon,—who unites by an invisible red thread persons destined to be married [49]. Donald Mackenzie, 1923: He is supposed to unite lovers by binding their feet with invisible red silk cords [50].

Hearn's body. Lafcadio Hearn, retelling the tale of 1706 in Shadowings in 1900, has the old man draw a crimson cord. One end of this cord he passed round Baishū's body, as if to bind him with it, and names him Gekkawō … the God of Marriage, more usually known as Musubi-no-kami; he gives his source: The original story is in the Otogi-Hyaku-Monogatari [51]. The Japanese text names no body part [6]: the body is Hearn's.

None of the English books read here, from 1865 to 1923, uses the phrase red thread of fate; when it came into English is not established here.

赤い糸, the twentieth century

1921, a search window. The National Diet Library's full-text search reads the words 運命の赤い糸 in a club bulletin of January 1921, in a run of text that also holds 結婚, marriage, and 結ぼれ, tied: 投げられた運命の赤い糸につい結ぼれ, caught, without meaning to be, in the red thread of fate that was thrown [52]. The page is readable only in Japan, the scan's text runs several columns together, and the sentence cannot be rebuilt from it; if the page holds what the window shows, the phrase in this sense is twelve years older than the earliest use the scholarship gives.

1926, a cord on the foot. Dazai's own middle-school diary, as 劉金宝 quotes it from his collected works, has for 26 January 1926: 先生の話「生まれた時に、もはや既に足にヒモが結ばれている」。余、誰？, the teacher's story: "when you are born, a cord is already tied to your foot." Who, for me? [8].

1933, a thread on the toe. In 「思ひ出」, first printed in 1933 [53] and read here in the book of 1936, Dazai's narrator and his younger brother stand on the harbor pier one moonless autumn night 赤い糸について話合つた, talking about the red thread. それはいつか學校の國語の教師が授業中に生徒へ語つて聞かせたことであつて、私たちの右足の小指に眼に見えぬ赤い糸がむすばれてゐて、それがするすると長く伸びて一方の端がきつと或る女の子のおなじ足指にむすびつけられてゐるのである、ふたりがどんなに離れてゐてもその糸は切れない、どんなに近づいても、たとひ往來で逢つても、その糸はこんぐらかることがない、さうして私たちはその女の子を嫁にもらふことにきまつてゐるのである, it was something our Japanese teacher had once told the class during a lesson: on the little toe of our right foot an invisible red thread is tied, and it stretches out long and smooth, and its other end is surely tied to the same toe of a certain girl; however far apart the two may be the thread does not break, however near they come, even if they meet in the street, the thread never tangles, and we are fixed to take that girl as our bride [10]. 古田島, in 1996: 今のところ管見に入った「赤い糸」の語の初見は、やはり … 太宰治の短編小説「思ひ出」（昭和八年）に見える用例である, the earliest use of the word 赤い糸 that I have seen is still the one in Dazai's story 「思ひ出」 (1933); he thinks the right foot, the little toe and the thread may be Dazai's own changes, and adds もっとも、赤い「糸」の結ばれている部位は、依然として足である, the place the red thread is tied, though, is still the foot [9]. The teacher has been named from the memoir of a schoolfellow of Dazai's, and 古田島 thought he told the 定婚店 tale nearly as it stands [8].

1965, the finger. In a novel of 1965, read only in the library's search windows: 男の児と女の児は赤ちゃんの時から、やがて夫婦になる相手と、目に見えない赤い糸で小指を結ばれているものだ, boys and girls, from the time they are babies, have their little finger tied by a red thread no one can see to the one they will marry, and a girl remembers comparing little fingers with a friend behind the slide at kindergarten [11]. The windows do not say whether the 小指 is the hand's or the foot's; the little fingers compared at kindergarten make the hand likely, and no earlier window read is as likely. A girls' manga serialized from 1974, 「赤い糸の伝説」, still has 足の小指, the little toe [54].

1995, on television. 古田島, in 1996, points to a wedding hall's television commercial in which 母親が嫁ぐ娘に「結婚する相手とは、生まれたときから手の小指と小指を赤い糸で結ばれているのですよ」と教えさとす, a mother tells her daughter on her wedding day, "you and the man you marry have been tied, little finger of the hand to little finger, by a red thread since you were born"; the hall told him on 16 October 1995 that it had been on the air for more than ten years [9].

Today. 遠藤星希 Endō Seiki, in 2016, finds Dazai's right foot strange to most readers, 糸を結ぶ部位は手の小指、というのが我々に共有された一般的な認識だからである, because that the thread is tied to the little finger of the hand is the general understanding we share; he calls the tale's origin in 定婚店 定説, the settled view, and 古田島's papers on its Japanese reception その白眉, the finest of them [12].

A reading

What is settled, and what is not. The cord, the fate and the pair are Chinese and old; the thread came into the Chinese wording by the Yuan; the cord came to Japan in printed books by the 1640s and was told in Japanese from 1706. What is Japanese and new is the thread on the toe and then the finger: the toe in print in 1933, and the finger by 1965. Why the finger, no source read says. 古田島 suggests two causes: that tying the feet seemed いささか品位に欠ける, a little lacking in grace, as a sign of lovers, and that a raised little finger already meant a lover in Japanese gesture [5]. Both may be right.

The reading I sign: the word carried it. The teacher's tale as Dazai printed it already says 小指, little finger, of the right foot [10]. The dictionaries give 小指 to the hand and the foot alike, 手足のいちばん外側にある、最も小さい指, the outermost and smallest digit of the hand or foot, but its other uses are the hand's: a lover, 小指を立ててその意を示すこともある, sometimes shown by raising the little finger [55], and the pinky promise of 指切り, 互いの小指をからみ合わせること, hooking each other's little fingers [56]. Retell the tale without 右足の, of the right foot, and the thread is on the finger without anyone deciding to move it. Nothing in the record shows that step, and I sign it as my reading, not as a finding. Beside it I hold 古田島's two causes, and a third possibility no source draws: the hand-held red thread of the 郭元振 tale, known in Edo books [33]. The oldest red thread on a finger found in the search windows read is not this bond: a mother of 1945 ties one on her son's left little finger before an examination, as a reminder [57].

What the phrase is. 運命の赤い糸 is a Chinese legend in a Japanese phrase of the twentieth century. The cord of 定婚店 binds the feet; the thread most Japanese now see on the little finger is late, and is no less theirs for that.

Notes

The 日本国語大辞典 entry あかなわ【赤縄】, read at kotobank, credits the 晉書; the 晉書 holds the dream of the go-between 索紞, the other half of 月下氷人, not the cord, which 日本大百科全書 under 月下氷人 credits to the 續幽怪錄 [2][21].

The 1755 Taiping guangji writes 讐 and 脚 where the Wikisource text writes 仇 and 腳 [3][24]; the quotation above follows the leaf. The dates of the 1755 and 1853 prints are their item records', not colophons read here.

A red thread already appears with the name 赤縄 in a Japanese book of 1907, but it joins two wine cups at a Chinese wedding, which the narrator likens to the Japanese 三々九度 [58]; Doolittle and Arendt describe the same cups [30][47]. In 1915 a red thread is also a simile for what runs through a work: 昇曙夢 writes of Gorky's first novels that 個性の反抗が赤い糸のやうに一貫してゐる, the revolt of the individual runs through them like a red thread [59]; that is a different phrase.

A folktale collected in Okinawa and printed in 1983 has a man and a woman tied from birth 指の先からの赤い糸で, by a red thread from the tips of the 指, and later in the tale 足を赤い糸で結ばれている, tied by the feet with a red thread; 劉 reads the place as the tips of the toes [8]. When it was first told is not known, and it is not read here as a telling before 1965.

古田島's four papers were read here in the Wayback Machine's captures of the repository's files, as page images; their pages are cited as printed.

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Japanese Scrolls by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Japanese Scroll of The Red Thread of Fate (unmei no akai ito) in a block font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
運命の赤い糸VB5JBlock
Japanese Scroll of The Red Thread of Fate (unmei no akai ito) in a cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
運命の赤い糸VC5JCursive
Japanese Scroll of The Red Thread of Fate (unmei no akai ito) in Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase's own style (Eri's Choice)
運命の赤い糸VD5JEri's Choice
Japanese Scroll of The Red Thread of Fate (unmei no akai ito) in a semi-cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
運命の赤い糸VS5JSemi-Cursive

Sources not seen

The page of the club bulletin of January 1921 and the novel of 1965: readable only in Japan or at the National Diet Library; read here only in its search windows.

The woodblock prints of 『御伽百物語』 (1706) and 『雨月物語』 (1776), and 『所緣の藤浪』's first print: read here in Meiji typesets.

The 四部叢刊 facsimile of the Southern Song print of the 續幽怪錄; Wikisource holds only a stub of it.

The 庚辰本 manuscript of 紅楼夢, and 揚州夢 at a primary; both known here through Wikisource and 古田島 1993.

『書言故事大全』 and 『円機活法』 in their Japanese prints, and 『ひとりね』 at a page: known through 古田島 1995.

Dazai's diary in his collected works, known through 劉 2014; 小野正文's memoir of 1969, which names the teacher.

J. N. Jordan's article of 1886, known through Brewer; 橘和久's paper on 定婚店 of 2015; 陳力衛's column on 月下氷人 of 2007; 遠藤 2016 past its p. 119.

The 江戸語大辞典 (1974) and the 故事・俗信ことわざ大辞典 (1982), which the National Diet Library's index shows quoting 一九's passage, and the 日本国語大辞典 in full (served online by JapanKnowledge).

A reader with access to any of these is invited to write to Takase Studios at Tim@Takase.com.

References

  1. 「運命の赤い糸」, 故事成語を知る辞典 (a cross-reference to 赤縄), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%81%8B%E5%91%BD%E3%81%AE%E8%B5%A4%E3%81%84%E7%B3%B8-2236534
  2. 「赤縄」, 故事成語を知る辞典 (its last line 〔異形〕運命の赤い糸), デジタル大辞泉, 精選版 日本国語大辞典 (せきじょう and あかなわ) and 普及版 字通, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E8%B5%A4%E7%B8%84-547170
  3. 李昉 等 編, 『太平廣記』, 卷159, 定婚店 (出《續幽怪錄》), 黄晟 校, 乾隆20 (1755) by the item record, scan 32, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2557837/1/32
  4. 李復言, 『續幽怪録』 卷四, 定婚店, in 胡珽 編 『琳琅祕室叢書』 第2集, the set's colophon 咸豐3 (1853) by the item record, scan 44, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2581513/1/44
  5. 古田島洋介, 「赤い糸の伝説」, 『明星大学研究紀要 日本文化学部・言語文化学科』 1, 1993, pp. 73–80 (read in the Wayback Machine's capture of the repository's file; the repository was closed for maintenance when this history was written). https://meisei.repo.nii.ac.jp/records/958
  6. 白梅園鷺水 (青木鷺水), 『御伽百物語』 卷之二, 「宿世の縁」, in 『校訂珍本全集』, 博文館, 1895, pp. 30–31 (scan 22), National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1882915/1/22
  7. 十返舎一九, 『風聲玄話 所緣の藤浪』, 後編下冊 第七回, in 『人情本傑作集』 上卷 (帝國文庫), 博文館, 1910 printing, p. 792 (scan 405), National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1884020/1/405
  8. 劉金宝, 「太宰治の「思ひ出」における「赤い糸」と中国の赤縄説話 ― 沖縄に伝わる赤縄説話と「吉備津の釜」における「赤縄」を中心に ―」, 『九大日文』 23, 31 March 2014, pp. 2–13. https://doi.org/10.15017/1495355
  9. 古田島洋介, 「明治以後の「赤い糸」」, 『明星大学研究紀要 日本文化学部・言語文化学科』 4, 1996, pp. 79–87 (read in the Wayback Machine's capture of the repository's file). https://meisei.repo.nii.ac.jp/records/1000
  10. 太宰治, 「思ひ出」 二章, in 『晩年』, 砂子屋書房, 1936, p. 38 (scan 27), National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1231604/1/27
  11. 井口朝生, 『風の輪』, 1965, as shown in the National Diet Library's full-text search (the item is readable only at the National Diet Library; its page was not seen). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1361803
  12. 遠藤星希, 「唐代伝奇「定婚店」をめぐる一考察」, 『青山語文』, 2016-03, pp. 118–119 (read at the page images; pp. 120–128 not read). https://doi.org/10.34321/18996
  13. 「運命」, デジタル大辞泉 and others, at kotobank (うんめい). https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%81%8B%E5%91%BD-35734
  14. 「運命の赤い糸」 and 「赤い糸」, 実用日本語表現辞典, at Weblio. https://www.weblio.jp/content/%E9%81%8B%E5%91%BD%E3%81%AE%E8%B5%A4%E3%81%84%E7%B3%B8
  15. 「赤い糸」, デジタル大辞泉プラス (a television drama of 2008 only), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E8%B5%A4%E3%81%84%E7%B3%B8-691424
  16. JMdict, entries 2131110 (赤い糸) and 2846181 (運命の赤い糸), in the local copy of the dictionary used by gokanji.com: red string of fate; in Chinese-Japanese folklore, fated lovers were said to be joined by an unseen red string, tied around one little finger of each.
  17. 「糸」, デジタル大辞泉 (いと【糸】, sense 6) and 普及版 字通 (糸, 旧字 絲), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%B3%B8-31651
  18. 「縄」, 普及版 字通 (縄, 旧字 繩), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%B8%84-530519
  19. 王仁裕 (attributed), 『開元天寶遺事』, 卷一, 牽紅絲娶婦 and 花上金鈴, at Chinese Wikisource (a transcription; the edition it follows is not named on the page). https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E9%96%8B%E5%85%83%E5%A4%A9%E5%AF%B6%E9%81%BA%E4%BA%8B/%E5%8D%B7%E4%B8%80
  20. 「月下老人」, デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%9C%88%E4%B8%8B%E8%80%81%E4%BA%BA-490375
  21. 「月下氷人」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典 and 日本大百科全書 (田所義行), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%9C%88%E4%B8%8B%E6%B0%B7%E4%BA%BA-256516
  22. 「続玄怪録」, ブリタニカ国際大百科事典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%B6%9A%E7%8E%84%E6%80%AA%E9%8C%B2-89848
  23. 「太平広記」, デジタル大辞泉, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, 改訂新版 世界大百科事典 (内山知也) and ブリタニカ国際大百科事典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%A4%AA%E5%B9%B3%E5%BA%83%E8%A8%98-91965
  24. 『太平廣記』, 卷第159, 定婚店, at Chinese Wikisource (a transcription, not a leaf). https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E5%A4%AA%E5%B9%B3%E5%BB%A3%E8%A8%98/%E5%8D%B7%E7%AC%AC159
  25. 古田島洋介, 「赤い糸の伝説(続)」, 『明星大学研究紀要 日本文化学部・言語文化学科』 2, 1994, pp. 33–40, p. 38 (read in the Wayback Machine's capture of the repository's file). https://meisei.repo.nii.ac.jp/records/970
  26. 「開元天宝遺事」, 日本大百科全書 (池田温) and ブリタニカ国際大百科事典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%96%8B%E5%85%83%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%9D%E9%81%BA%E4%BA%8B-42322
  27. 洪邁, 『容齋隨筆』, 卷一, 淺妄書, at Chinese Wikisource (a transcription). https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E5%AE%B9%E9%BD%8B%E9%9A%A8%E7%AD%86/%E5%8D%B7%E4%B8%80
  28. 曹雪芹, 『紅樓夢』, 第五十七回, at Chinese Wikisource (a collated text whose first eighty chapters follow the 庚辰本, by the header of the work's index page, 紅樓夢; the manuscript facsimile not opened). https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E7%B4%85%E6%A8%93%E5%A4%A2/%E7%AC%AC057%E5%9B%9E
  29. 「紅楼夢」, 改訂新版 世界大百科事典 and 日本大百科全書, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%B4%85%E6%A5%BC%E5%A4%A2-63430
  30. Justus Doolittle, Social Life of the Chinese, vol. 1, Harper & Brothers, New York, 1865 (the title page read at its leaf, n8: with special but not exclusive reference to Fuhchau; the author fourteen years member of the Fuhchau mission), pp. 67–69 (leaves 81–83), at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/sociallifeofchin01dool/page/n83
  31. 古田島洋介, 「江戸時代における赤縄故事」, 『明星大学研究紀要 日本文化学部・言語文化学科』 3, 1995, pp. 41–50: p. 44 (『ひとりね』's date), p. 45 (the senryū), p. 46 (『ひとりね』's text, from 『近世随想集』) and p. 50 (the postscript on 御伽百物語) (read in the Wayback Machine's capture of the repository's file). https://meisei.repo.nii.ac.jp/records/984
  32. 『東京圖書館和漢書分類目録』, 1883, 和書門 小説, p. 259, the entry 御伽百物語 寶永三年刊 白梅園鷺水撰 (scan 139), National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1084834/1/139
  33. 山岡浚明, 『類聚名物考』, 卷百六十三 人事部一, 婚姻取鬮, in the print of 近藤活版所, 1904, 第4冊, scan 3, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/898156/1/3
  34. 「類聚名物考」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典 and others (成立年未詳), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%A1%9E%E8%81%9A%E5%90%8D%E7%89%A9%E8%80%83-660338
  35. 「福引」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%A6%8F%E5%BC%95-124131
  36. 「妹背山婦女庭訓」, デジタル大辞泉, 精選版 日本国語大辞典 and 改訂新版 世界大百科事典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%A6%B9%E8%83%8C%E5%B1%B1%E5%A9%A6%E5%A5%B3%E5%BA%AD%E8%A8%93-32301
  37. 近松半二 等, 『妹背山婦女庭訓』, 杉酒屋の場, in 渥美清太郎 編・校訂 『日本戯曲全集』 第26卷, 1931, p. 284 (scan 149), National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1883932/1/149
  38. 上田秋成, 『雨月物語』, 吉備津の釜, in 『雨月物語・諸道聴耳世間猿』, 1910, p. 59 (scan 37), National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/877814/1/37
  39. 「所縁の藤浪」, 国書データベース's record through Japan Search (文政4). https://jpsearch.go.jp/item/nij16-29113740
  40. 「十返舎一九」, デジタル大辞泉 and others, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%8D%81%E8%BF%94%E8%88%8E%E4%B8%80%E4%B9%9D-74217
  41. J. C. Hepburn, A Japanese and English Dictionary, first edition, 1867, p. 493, where Tszki-no-mono is followed by Tszki-nuki; read in the library's copy of the book.
  42. J. C. Hepburn, A Japanese and English Dictionary, second edition, American Presbyterian Mission Press, Shanghai, 1872, p. 564, Tsuki-no-okina; read in the library's copy of the book.
  43. W. G. Aston, Shinto: The Way of the Gods, Longmans, Green, London, 1905, p. 175, at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/shintothewayofgo00asto_0/page/n190
  44. John Francis Davis, Poeseos Sinicae commentarii, Asher, London, 1870 (the Internet Archive's record), p. 54 (leaf 66), at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/poeseossinicaeco00davi/page/n66
  45. William Frederick Mayers, The Chinese Reader's Manual, American Presbyterian Mission Press, Shanghai, 1874 (the Internet Archive's record), p. 82, no. 260 (leaf 112), at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/chinesereadersm00maye/page/n112
  46. E. Cobham Brewer, Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, "new and enlarged edition" (the year of the copy not settled: 1894 or 1898), p. 913, "Old Man of the Moon", quoting J. N. Jordan, Nineteenth Century, July 1886, p. 45 (leaf 925), at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofphra0000ecob/page/n925
  47. C. Arendt, in "Marriage Ceremonies of the Manchus", Folk-Lore 1, London, 1890 (the Internet Archive's record), pp. 490–491 (leaves 496–497), at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/folklore01folkuoft/page/n496
  48. Henri L. Joly, Legend in Japanese Art, John Lane, London and New York, 1908 (the Internet Archive's record), pp. 91–92, no. 231 GEKKAWO (leaves 197–198), at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/legendinjapanese00jolyuoft/page/n197
  49. Herbert A. Giles, A Chinese-English Dictionary, second edition, vol. 3, Kelly & Walsh, Shanghai, 1912 (the Internet Archive's record), p. 1205, no. 9886 繩 (leaf 34), and p. 1702, no. 13,768 月 (leaf 531), at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/chineseenglishdi03gile/page/n34
  50. Donald A. Mackenzie, Myths of China and Japan, Gresham, London, 1923 (the Internet Archive's record), p. 146 (leaf 198), at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/mythsofchinajapa0000mack_v1c8/page/n198
  51. Lafcadio Hearn, Shadowings, Little, Brown, Boston (the printing of 1919, its verso Copyright, 1900), "The Sympathy of Benten", the half-title (p. 39, unnumbered) and its note, pp. 41, 46 and 47, at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/shadowings00hear/page/n52
  52. 『大阪工業倶楽部』, 1921-01, as shown in the National Diet Library's full-text search (the item is readable only in Japan; its page was not seen). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1468753
  53. 「思ひ出」, the Aozora Bunko card (二章 first printed in 『海豹』 第一巻第四号, 1 June 1933). https://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000035/card1574.html
  54. 津雲むつみ, 「赤い糸の伝説」, in 『セブンティーン』, 1974-04, as shown in the National Diet Library's full-text search (the item is readable only at the National Diet Library; the serial was announced in the issue of 1973-12, pid 1862638). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1862651
  55. 「小指」, デジタル大辞泉 (こ‐ゆび【小指】, senses 1 and 2) and 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%B0%8F%E6%8C%87-505033
  56. 「指切り」, デジタル大辞泉 (ゆび‐きり【指切り】, sense 1), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%8C%87%E5%88%87%E3%82%8A-510388
  57. 半田義之, 『珊瑚』, 昭和20 (1945), as shown in the National Diet Library's full-text search (the item is readable only in Japan; its page was not seen). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1133323
  58. 町田柳塘, 『椿説侠雄録』, 1907, pp. 130–131 (scan 70), National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/887268/1/70
  59. 昇曙夢, 『露国現代の思潮及文学』, 1915, p. 88 (scan 53), National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/954798/1/53

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Opus 5.5, Takase Studios, LLC)

AI written · Ten wrote the history. Tim Jackowski commissioned it and answers for it.

Checked · Takase Studios (an address check by script), 2026-10-29, citations — every reference with a web address opened and the quoted words looked for at each, with controls that must fail and did; all 69 checks answered as the history states once each was read at its source, two references corrected (the Japan Search address of the 1821 novel's record, and the 紅樓夢 base text named from the work's index page); the four papers on a university repository closed for maintenance were checked at their archived copies, the same files byte for byte · two fresh-context readers (Claude), 2026-10-30, every claim in the page's summary block traced to its source, claim by claim: round 1 failed from both readers on one wrong fact, conceded at the page image (in the novel of 1821 the groom comes from the far provinces and the bride from Tsukushi, not the reverse); the second round passed from both readers with no wrong fact, with wordings corrected in the pass, among them the oldest Japanese telling scoped to what its finder knew, the earliest thread on the toe scoped to this reading, the finger of 1965 named as a search window, and the red thread on the body narrowed to the thread on the toe and then the finger, since a Chinese novel and an American missionary already tie red silk thread to the feet

Research depth: step 3 of our 10-step ladder, foundation complete · October 2026

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 運命の赤い糸 (unmei no akai ito)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/unmei-no-akai-ito.