In Izumono-kuni-fudoki there are sixteen accounts of Ohara district which begin with “the old man says.” Most accounts in the document are officially authorized and widely circulated, but those of the “old man” version are so local that they must have been unknown outside the area. The phrase thus works as a kind of index to mark this important difference in communicative mode.

In Manyō-shū there is a song of Unai-Otome, a legendary virgin who was torn between two suitors and finally driven to suicide. In the “Ikuta-gawa” chapter of Yamato-monogatari the old song is reworked into a ballad called the “Otome-zuka” legend. Its third-person narration creates a space where the past and the present coexist for the transmission of literary heritage.

Owari-no-kuni-atsuta-daijingū-engi is the earliest document of the history of Atsuta Shrine in Nagoya. Although it was allegedly compiled in 890, the exact date of its publication is unknown. By focusing on the legend of Takeinadane-no-Kimi and an osprey which is written in the secular style of “kofudoki” records, this article will demonstrate that the document was completed until the end of the ninth century.

In the “Yūgao” chapter of Genji-monogatari Hikaru-Genji “never shows his face” to Yūgao when he pays a visit to her. As some critics point out, the episode is based on the legend of Mount Miwa in which Ōkuninushi visits a beautiful girl every night in a disguised form. So Genji “never shows his face” as he is disguised or masked like the god. Taking into account the cultural significance of masquerade and Genji's physiognomic representation, here I will consider the function of the legendary moment in constructing the narrative world of Genji-monogatari.

“Kimi-wo-okite/Adashi-gokoro-wo-waga-motazuba/Sue-no-Matsuyama/Nami-mo-koenan.” Since the Tōhoku Earthquake in 2011, there has been a sort of controversy over whether the poem is about the tsunami generated by the big earthquake of the Jōgan Period. In my opinion it isn't simply because “nami-mo-koenan” means “it may be hit by the wave.” But the poem still provokes a variety of interpretations, for it is charged with connotations which cannot be reduced to a single meaning. While mentioning the recent commodification of “Sue-no-Matsuyama” and other “utamakura” sites for tourism, here I will suggest a new approach to waka poetry that is more concerned with its multivalent aspect.

“Iki-no-wo-ni-waga-omou-kimi-wa (I can't stop thinking about you as long as I live).” “Nittōshi-ni-okuru-uta,” Kasa-no-Kanamura's poem in Manyō-shū, can be read as an elegy of an envoy's wife mourning over his departure for China. By representing her as an ordinary woman passionately devoted to her husband, the poet implicitly legitimates female dependence on men. In other words, he constructs her as the “Other” who is necessary for a positive definition of manhood.

In Utsuho-monogatari Minamoto-no-Masayori visits Minamoto-no-Sanetada when the latter comes back from his seclusion in the mountain to live with his wife again. In this scene Sanetada also narratively comes back as a main character after his exit from the story when he parts from his wife. This turning point in the plot takes place through the dual function of poetical exchanges which is to diegetically restore family ties and to formally facilitate a narrative development. Such an elaborate literary device makes us realize anew the work's well-constructedness.