A thousand years of everyday life in Japan, told by the one who was there.
Most stories about old Japan are about shoguns, samurai, and war. This one is not. It is about a bowl of rice gruel, a paper umbrella, a jar of pickles — and the nameless people who made them part of a culture without ever knowing they were doing it.
The narrator is a peddler who does not age. He has walked this country for a thousand years, from the closing days of the Heian court to the eve of the modern age, and he has watched ordinary life turn, slowly, into tradition. He tells it plainly, as a man who was simply there.
Every tale is grounded in real Japanese scholarship, and the sources are listed at the end of each one — so you can always see where the history stops and the story starts.
New tales are translated as they are written. If you’d like to follow along, the narrator posts each one as it appears.
The Tales Only I Have Seen