Where the history stops and the story starts — and how we make sure the history is real.
These are stories. But the world they are set in — what people ate and wore, which tools they used and how, when a custom first spread — is not invented. For each tale we go to the books and the records first, and build only on what can be checked. Here is how that works.
The scenes, the characters, and the conversations are invented. The premise itself — that a deathless peddler happened to be in a particular village in a particular year — is a fiction in service of the telling.
The texture of daily life, on the other hand, stays within what the sources support. Where the record is uncertain, we say so, and write it as hearsay or supposition rather than fact. We do not dress up a guess as something that is known.
For each subject we turn to the standard works in that field — folklore, social and everyday history, the history of food, dress, architecture, religion — favouring trusted authors and publishers. At the end of every tale, the books actually consulted are listed in full, with author, title, publisher, and ISBN.
Because many of these are Japanese-language works, each tale also carries a short Further reading in English list, so an English-speaking reader can always follow the history somewhere they can actually read it.
A cited book is worthless if it does not exist. So before a tale is published, every ISBN it lists is checked automatically against bibliographic databases — Japan’s National Diet Library, openBD, and Google Books — and the title is matched to confirm the number really belongs to that book. A fabricated reference, or a transposed digit, cannot slip through: the check runs as an automated gate on every commit. This matters more than anything else on the page. It is the difference between a source you can trust and one you have to take on faith.
The image on each tale is an illustration drawn in a single consistent style across the whole series. By choice, no individual’s face is drawn; the pictures quietly suggest the tools and scenes of the age. They are not reproductions of period artwork.
Even when the work is done from the sources, mistakes and gaps remain. If you notice something, please tell us through the contact form. Every correction is checked and folded into the text, and into the research behind later tales.
This is fiction grounded in history. When you need the facts themselves, the surest path is the list of sources at the end of each tale. The publisher accepts no liability for any loss arising from use of the information here.
New tales are translated as they are written. Get each one — with a short note on the history behind it — by email.
The Tales Only I Have Seen