(urth) TSH: Rip van Winkle and John Duns Scotus

Gwern Branwen gwern0 at gmail.com
Tue May 4 05:48:15 PDT 2010


On Tue, May 4, 2010 at 2:53 AM, Stephen Hoy <stephenhoy at yahoo.com> wrote:
...
> As to Bax's familiar, Winker/Winkle suggests a link to the story of the Urashima Taro, a
> Japanese Rip van Winkle who went away to fairyland for a few days and
> returned home only to find years had passed.
>
> Strengthening this
> supposition is the second half of the fox's name, Inari, which refers to a Japanese god of success & prosperity, often depicted as an old man
> riding a white fox.

Whoa, I don't see any connection there at all. I don't remember
Urashima Taro being connected with foxes/kitsune at all - dragons, if
anything. Nor did I ever hear of Taro as being rewarded with great
wealth, and I'm not sure about there being any Rip van Winkle-style
time travel in the story.

-- 
gwern



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