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Hello and welcome to the History of Japan podcast, episode 279, The Prince of Fieves.

This week, I want to focus our attention on a rather interesting historical figure, a man who, by most accounts, may not have actually existed.

You see, he only shows up in one place in any detail, a collection of stories called the Konjuku-Mongatari-shu,

which roughly translates to Tales of Times Now Past.

We've talked a little bit about this collection before,

though never in any substantial detail.

It is a collection of what

are called Setsua, stories from the oral tradition, which was compiled sometime in the late

...