In this article, I would like to confirm the animistic(Animism) view of nature of Kenji Miyazawa, who was the most famous fairy tale writer from Iwate, Japan, by classifying the types and analysing the contents of his animal fairy tales. After that I tried to confirm of the relationship Kenji`s fox fairy tales and Japan`s old fox tales by comparing those contents, so I could find out the several results. First of all, 27 kinds of animal had been appeared in his 30 animal fairy tales and the fox fairy tale is the most by 8 titles. Besides ‘the type of fable’ is the most with 18 titles and the next is ‘the type of friendly’, there were 8 titles, which the human being and the fox lived as the neighborhood and communicated with each other. He had especially implied through of his works that both of them have lived in the same world and had the same soul.
Continually, I could find out two results when I compared Kenji’s 8 of fox fairy tales and Japan’s old Fox tales of 22 titles. One of them is that ‘the fable type’ of Kenji’s is the most by 5 titles, so it is different with there were the most of ‘the monster type’ among the old fox tales. The other is that Kenji’s the fox fairy tales of ‘friendly type’ described the world that the human and the fox lived friendly and trust each other. It is different from Japan’s old fox tales that described the fox as the monster harming human or transform to human.
To be short, Kenji’s animal fairy tales including the fox fairy tales make us confirm that the human and the animal had a symbiotic in the same world that has been called ‘Nature’, as the equal beings with same spirit, even though there were so many different or complicated relation between them. Finally, I could conclude that the world of Kenji’s animal fairy tales is ‘the world of the animistic(Animism)’ coming from once upon a time.本稿では、日本の岩手県生まれの代表的な童話作家であり、詩人である宮沢賢治の動物物語をもって、その内容に基づいて類型を仕分け、それらの特徴を探ることを通して、賢治のアニミズム的自然観を確認したいと思う。 続いて、彼の動物物語の中でもっとも多い‘狐’童話‘’と、日本の狐の昔話とを比較することに依って、賢治の狐童話が狐の昔話とどのような相関関係を持つかを考察したいと思う。 まず、賢治の30編に至る動物物語に登場する動物は合わせれ27種類であり、狐の登場する狐童話が8編と、もっとも多かった。 類型別としては、動物同士の世界を描いた‘寓話刑’が18編として一番多く、その次が人間と動物が同じ世界を共有し、お互いに親しく行き来する‘親和刑’が8編であった。 続いて、賢治の8編の狐童話と22編の狐の昔話とを比較した結果、第一、狐の妖怪性を物語る‘妖怪刑’が一番多かった(9)昔話に比べ、動物同士の社会性とキャラクターを通した教訓的な内容を描いた‘寓話刑’の童話が多数(5)を占めた。 第二、‘親和刑’の狐童話は、狐を異類的存在として描く昔話とは違い、人間と狐がお互いに親しく信じ合って、一つの同世界を共有する内容を描いている。要するに、賢治の狐童話をはじめ、彼の動物童話は人間と動植物とが、自然という一つの世界の中で、様々な出来事を取り囲む中でも究極的には同じ魂をもつ平等な存在であることをお互いに悟っていく話を通して、アニミズム的な昔々を現代に至るまで物語ってくれることが分かった。