The Fisherman and His Ningyo

by Areej Quraishi

In the middle of the Edo period, on the westernmost tip of Kyushu, a peasant son and his mother lived by the ocean. The son was well-meaning, but also well-known as a simpleton. Alas, even had he been sharp as a blade, it would have mattered little to the villagefolk. The pair would always be outcast.

For, while the mother had been from a decent enough family of fishermen, she had fallen in love with a man of the burakumin. To wed an untouchable had incurred the ire of not only her family, but of the entire village. They cast her off  to live in the ghettos of her husband’s people. The husband, a lowly butcher, could competently wield his knife, but one day as he skinned a pig, it slipped in his hand and took a slice out of his hip. The dirty, dead blood tainted his own and he lay lifeless within hours. The wife, by then saddled with an infant, had begrudgingly been allowed back into her birth village. But no one would wed a woman as sullied as she. She managed to raise her son to manhood as a fisherman, yet he remained dimwitted and unlettered.

⸶

One day, the mother became ill, and it fell on the son to care for her. Needless to say, her constitution worsened by the day. No physician would deign to treat her, especially not without compensation. For, with her being ill, there was no more household income. Their food supply dwindled. One night, the son left  the house for the first time since her illness to fish for more.

Though nighttime wasn’t ideal, it made sense to leave aft er putting her to sleep. But he didn’t think to wait a little longer. He wasn’t actually a very good fisherman, and didn’t know that just aft er dark and just before light was when fish bit most of all. It never crossed his mind that in between those times, his rod might reel in something else. So the moon had fully ascended by the time he was in his boat. Not a soul could be seen on the shore. The fisherman had just begun nodding off when something tugged at his rod.

It almost jerked half his body out into the waters. Eagerly, the fisherman heaved with all his might, until a massive, wriggling, scaly something splashed into the boat.

He would have yelled if his blood hadn’t chilled him frozen. Th ere, flopping frantically on the wooden boards, was a fish that was the size of a man. Its scales were of a brilliant vermillion, speckled with indigo, and its gills ran longer than the length of the fisherman’s hand. But none of this was what had him spellbound. For while most of the fish resembled a carp, in place of a fish head, was a ghastly-looking horned head of a human’s. But what a gruesome, frightful face it was! The hair was eerily seaweed-like, the eyes were bloodshot and bulbous, the lips fleshy and droopy, much like those of a true fish aft er all. As the creature thrashed about, its darting gaze fell on the fisherman.

“Please save me!” it cried. “Your hook has embedded itself in my body. I’ll die if it doesn’t come out.”

Th e fisherman’s voice finally burst forth in a strangled yell. His hands, already having dropped the rod, scrambled backwards so that he cowered in the corner of the boat.

“Yōkai!” he gasped, pointing at the creature. A talking fish! There was no other explanation: this was a malevolent spirit, come to devour him.

“No, no!” the fish-human protested. “I am but a harmless ningyo. You have nothing to fear of me. Please, good fisherman, mercifully take your hook out of my flesh.”

“Go away!” the fisherman insisted, terrified. He covered his face with his hands. “I’ve heard the stories. If you are indeed a ningyo, it’s inauspicious for me to even look upon you. You are an ill omen, who only brings conflict and destruction. And I’ve had my fill of it!”

“It’s not true,” the ningyo pleaded, its voice growing louder and reverberant. “That’s a myth they concocted during the Sengoku jidai. We used to come up to the surface often then. The entire land was already warring. They only wanted something else to blame. The samurai began hunting us, and now barely any of us are left . Oh, please, good fisherman, don’t let me die!”

As the ningyo spoke, something that the fisherman believed was a very clever plan began to unfold in his mind. A ningyo! A mythical creature that talked. And an enormous one at that. Surely this would fetch him a heft y price at the fish market? He would receive a sum large enough to treat his mother. This plan couldn’t fail. However, simpleton that he was, he reached for his net and told the ningyo what he intended, and that it therefore had to hold still.

The ningyo thrashed and gasped harder than ever. “You cannot be so cruel,” it screeched. The continuous writhing caused blood to steadily trickle out of an orifice, catching the fisherman’s eye. For the first time, pity entered his heart. He leapt forward, and, though he was loathe to touch it, he searched the orifice and retrieved his hook from the ningyo’s body. The ningyo shuddered, appearing to finally calm, but then began to wail mournfully. “Please let me go,” it said. “You cannot be so cruel as to have me sold and eaten. I’d rather die!”

“Look here, what else would you have me do!” the fisherman said, flinging the hook aside. “If you only knew my plight!” He then launched into the explanation of his mother’s illness, and why it rendered him so desperate.

“Then, pick up your hook and cut out one of my scales,” the ningyo said to his surprise. “Take it home and boil it into soup to give to your mother. When she consumes it, she’ll be healed of her illness and her life will be restored.”

Though skeptical, the fisherman did as the ningyo said and took a scale by its dorsal fin. Then, because it could not return to the water by itself, he helped roll the ningyo out of his boat and back into the sea. Uttering numerous expressions of gratitude, the creature swam away.

The sun was rising as the fisherman returned home. He went about preparing the soup as the ningyo instructed. Before he placed it in the water, the scale caught some of the morning rays streaming through the window. He noticed for the first time its beauty, for it coruscated like a gem, the red and blue hues reminding him of the ripest of fruit.

He fed his mother the soup upon her awakening. “How lovely, Yohei!” she exclaimed. Within the hour, she was sitting up without help. By nightfall, she was steeping her own tea. And the next morning, she had resumed her regular duties as a housecleaner for the village.

⸶

The mother’s extraordinary recovery was the talk of the villagefolk. How did she, an untouchable’s widow, with a fool for a son, overcome such a grave sickness so easily? None of them had come by to care for her, that much was certain. Could they have secured a physician among the samurai class, Rangaku-learned, the only training that could combat an illness so severe? But it would have required an exorbitant sum for any respectable doctor to soil his hands with buraku. Ah, wait! A neighbor had seen the son walking to his hut in the early hours of the morning, something colorful clasped in his hand, sparkling like a jewel. Rumors began flowing.

Word spread to a nearby daimyo, who grew bent on uncovering the secret to this miracle. It was his duty to ensure that no commoner, an untouchable at that, threatened to destabilize the sacred class order. He sent his retainers, aided by local peasants, to investigate. They confronted the son at the fish market, where he stood at a lone stall that few deigned to stop by.

“So tell us, Yohei,” one of the peasants said, “how came your mother to be so hearty again? Did you procure an exotic herb or treatment?”

“No, I only gave her a soup.”

“Then, it must have been very costly,” they stressed. “Which doctor made it for you?”

“There was no doctor,” said the fisherman. “I met a ningyo one night and it gave me one of its scales to boil for her.”

The peasants exchanged baffled looks. “Is this scoundrel laughing at us?” demanded the daimyo’s retainer.

“No, not a chance,” the peasants were quick to say. “This is a boneheaded buffoon and has always been. He conjures up any nonsense in his head and can’t separate it from reality. Listen here, Yohei, the daimyo will not leave you be until you tell us how you paid for a doctor. It defies the social order for you to be able to enlist one, the same order that has earned us the hard-fought peace and stability that oafs like you take for granted. You’d best think hard and tell us the truth soon, lest you wish your mother perished of the same illness you saved her from.”

With that, the group of men left the fisherman shaking in his patched, raggedy clothes.

⸶

In the dead of that night, the fisherman was in his boat on the water again. “Ningyo!” he rasped, both hands cupped around his mouth.

To his immense relief, the water stirred and the ningyo’s horned heavy head bobbed out of the waves. “Why do you summon me, good fisherman?” it said. It seemed in higher spirits.

He hastily recounted the day’s events. “That’s why you must let me take you to the market tomorrow,” he said frantically. “I have to prove to them that it was you who healed my mother, otherwise they won’t leave us alone.”

“Alas, fisherman! This I cannot do. Humans must never know that ningyo are still real. Otherwise we’ll be hunted once more.”

“But why! We’ll tell them you’re not really an ill omen, that it’s all a myth.”

“They shan’t believe it. And even so, there is more to it. In the days of old, humans would consume our flesh to become immortal. What they don’t know is immortality is a curse! The scale I gave to your mother was enough to cure her of her disease, perhaps it gave her more years. But she will never outlive you, which is how it should be. But most humans are not content with scales: they take too much, and realize too late their mistake. Some of them killed and consumed us whole. T is proved even more disastrous. Only a living ningyo’s flesh grants longevity. Eating a dead one, or its slough, the nukegara, is tantamount to eating poison. If you bring me to those men, it will mean doom for us all. Believe me when I say, I would rather die!”

The fisherman clutched his head in despair. “Then what am I to do!

They’ll come after us, they’ve said as much. I just want us left in peace.”

“You must lie,” the ningyo said dolefully. “Tell them you sold something valuable and acquired a doctor.”

“I can’t lie, I have nothing of value. They all know it.”

“Then,” said the ningyo, brightening, “take a piece of one of my horns. They are ivory, and no doubt priceless. Tell them you found it somewhere, sold half to pay for a doctor, and that’ll be the end of it.”

The fisherman did as he was told. To remove the tip of the horn, he had to first brush the seaweed-like hair out of the way. It was blacker than the night sky and surprisingly light and silken. As he let the hair settle against the ningyo’s rounded, peach-tinged cheek, it occurred to him for the first time that she was female. He worried that sawing off  the horn would hurt her, so he took pains to be careful, but she didn’t seem to mind. He thanked the ningyo, bade her farewell and departed with the horn.

Simpleton that he was, he had not checked to ensure that no one had been watching him.

⸶

The next day, a massive crowd had gathered around the fisherman’s seldom-frequented stall, enraptured and awestruck by the gleaming tip of ivory. It was pearly white and smooth as jade. Nobles were bidding on it by the time the daimyo’s retainer along with his peasant cronies arrived on the scene.

“So!” the peasants said. “Th is is how you paid off  the doctor, eh, Yohei?

Knew you’d come into some finery somehow.”

“Yes,” said the fisherman, struggling to maintain his nerves. “But this is the last of it, I haven’t got any more.”

“That’s just as well! The daimyo will be most intrigued to hear about this, no doubt,” said the retainer, satisfied.

Just as the group of men were leaving, a peasant man tugged on the retainer’s sleeve. He had seen something remarkable, he claimed. The retainer lent him his ear, and the peasant murmured his testimony into it: the night before, he had seen the fisherman in his boat, speaking to a strange creature. The conversation had been too distant for him to hear, but there was no mistaking his eyes: it was a ningyo.

The retainer and peasants blinked at each other incredulously. They hastened to the daimyo’s fief and reported the account.

The daimyo’s eyes gleamed as he listened. The hunger on his face was evident.

“Forgive us, Oyakata-sama,” the retainer said hastily. “We know it is too fanciful a story.”

“On the contrary,” the daimyo said, “it is entirely plausible. Ningyo have existed for at least as long as we have. Well do I remember the tales my ancestors told me. Countless samurai owe their victories and survival to the consumption of their flesh. Recall the 800-Year Priestess, who lived only until she decided to end her own life! I order you to bring me this ningyo at once. Watch this buraku fisherman at all times. The power the creature can grant is immeasurable, and I must have it for my own if I am to emerge the shogun someday.”

Meanwhile, a nobleman had already purchased the piece of ivory for a handsome price. The fisherman raced home with an enormous sack bulging with ryo.

“Oh, my son! How can this be?” his mother exclaimed, eyes agog at the gold coins spilling onto her floor.

“I shan’t lie to you, Okaachan,” the fisherman said jubilantly. He sat her down, and, as he chopped vegetables to prepare for dinner, recounted the entire story. His mother was reeling by the end of it.

“Yohei, this ningyo is a blessing from the kami themselves! She brought us such fortune, when all else had deserted us for no fault of our own. My son, you must go thank her. Convey your mother’s gratefulness to our benefactor, and make sure she knows we are in her debt.”

The good-natured son hastened to obey his mother. He hurried to the shore and waded into the sea until the water reached his hips. “Ningyo!” he called and waited. But no one came. Disappointment struck him, and only then did he realize that even had he not had to thank her, he wanted to see her regardless.

He had just lost hope when the familiar ripples of the water drift ed towards him. A moment later, the ningyo’s head was bobbing in front of him once more.

“Oh good fisherman, I answered your last summons because I owed you a great debt,” she said, her voice plaintive. “But coming to the surface like this puts me in danger. I cannot stay long, not even for minutes.”

“I ask for only seconds,” the fisherman said eagerly. “I don’t mean to trouble you. I only wish to relay my mother’s gratitude. It’s us who owe you. Not only did you cure her, but your horn has made us richer beyond our dreams. Isn’t there something we can do for you?”

The ningyo’s downturned, crescent-shaped, puffy lips flipped upward into a smile. “Just knowing that you are better off  is enough,” she said soft ly. “Now we must each return to our realms. It’s perilous otherwise. Too much human contact can affect us ningyo, and I don’t even know all the ways.” She seemed to want to say more, but held back. She looked sorrowful.

Crestfallen, the fisherman nodded. It saddened him to so abruptly lose the first friend he’d made. But he knew to keep his word. With a parting pat on the scales he’d once been so repulsed by, he trudged out of the water and back to his home.

He was not even halfway there when an earsplitting shriek shatt ered the air. The fisherman recognized that dreadful sound from days ago, and the terror it filled him with now was of a whole different sort than from back then. He hurtled back to the ocean, stopping short, horrorstruck, at what he saw: there, on the water, was a boat carrying the peasants who’d harassed him, with them, the daimyo’s retainer, in their hands, a ropy woven net, and in the net, the ningyo.

The fisherman let out a half-crazed roar of his own. He dived into the frigid sea, swimming desperately towards the boat. Th e salt stung his eyes, but he could see the ningyo flailing about helplessly; the scoundrels almost had her. He reached the net and pulled, but it was no use. The men were heaving with all their might; they outnumbered them too vastly. His hand chanced upon his loincloth, and he discovered, with a jolt, a knife, tucked into his waistband: the very knife he’d been chopping vegetables with earlier! There was no time to rejoice at the serendipity: the fisherman drew his knife and slashed at the net, freeing it from their hands.

Grasping it, he swam away from the boat, ningyo still in tow. The force of the severance had knocked the men backwards, giving the fisherman time to paddle to the shore. Now, they rowed towards him once more. Panting, feeling a searing in his chest and as though his arms and legs would be rent from their sockets, the fisherman made it to the beach. Having no notion of what to do next, he surged onward, hands all but glued to the net.

“Fisherman, wait!” the ningyo was crying out. “Cut off  one of my fins. Give it to the men and they may leave you be and let you throw me back into the sea. Hurry, they approach!”

“No, no!” The fisherman shook his head violently. “You have given enough of yourself. It isn’t right. Why should you reward those who only torment you? I don’t want you to be used anymore. I want to save you!”

Even as he saw the tears well up in her shining eyes, he could hear their pursuers mooring their boat. She had been right, they would be upon them in seconds. Panicked, he drew his knife, knowing in his heart that it was already futile to fight. Only one thing could protect her from them now, he realized, as he recalled all she’d said about what she feared the most. He gazed upon the ningyo in dismay, then raised his knife above his head with both hands. He hesitated for only a moment, before bringing it down and plunging it into her scales.

The men stopped in their tracks, mouths agape. They watched as he drove the knife downward and up, slitting the entire length of the ningyo from head to tail. Dumbstruck, they stood as the fisherman fell to his knees, hands sodden with blood. He dropped his head and sobbed before the creature he’d just mangled beyond repair.

And then the heavy, leatherlike folds fell away. There, to everyone’s amazement, amid both slabs of the thick scaly fish-hide, sat a bewildered, beautiful young woman. The astonishment on her face was mirrored in the fisherman’s as he gazed at her, spellbound. Together, they looked down at the bare, shapely legs, stretched in front of her, toes wedged in the wet sand and bathed in the still-fresh blood dripping from the fisherman’s knife.

“Who…who…” he stammered, but the long, seaweed-like tresses that swathed her lithe body, naked and pale in the moonlight, was all the answer he needed. He sprang to his feet and held out his hand to her. The woman took it, struggling to stand as though a newly born goat. Once upright, she made no pains to stop leaning her body against his, instead blinking rapturously as she stared into his eyes.

The fisherman was the first to remember where they all were. Eyeing the men warily, he placed the woman behind him. Then, knife still in hand, the fisherman, the famed simpleton of a fisherman, the boneheaded, dimwitted, buffoon of a fisherman, seized the ningyo’s nukegara, held it out in front of him, and said, voice shaking,

“Throw all your weapons into the water. Or I’ll damage this slough even more. Once you’re unarmed, we’ll leave with our lives, and I’ll drop this where you can retrieve it. Otherwise, your daimyo won’t get what he ordered, and you’ll all be flogged!”

Wordlessly, the men exchanged glances. They were in no position to bargain. They did as told. Hand in hand, the fisherman and the woman crept backwards until they were a safe distance away, before he tossed the slough as far away as he could. The men pounced upon it and ran off , still unnerved by all they had witnessed.

“Can it be true?” the fisherman finally addressed the woman weakly. “Could this mean what I dare to hope it does?”

The woman’s rosy button lips curved upwards in the same crescent smile that made his heart jolt. “Oh, good fisherman, whatever this may mean, I hope I need never be parted from you again!” she sighed.

And then the overjoyed fisherman caught his ningyo in his arms, and planted kisses all across her face. He dashed back home with her swifter than he had with the scale, more relieved than he had with the horn, and more eagerly than he had with the sack of ryo. There, the two explained all to his bemused mother, who wept her gratitude into her savior’s new hands, before thanking the heavens and showering the pair with all the blessings she could muster.

As this bliss unfolded, the retainer and his gang of peasants wasted no time in presenting the daimyo with the nukegara. He had it cooked and served immediately, for his ancestors had never been told what came of eating the dead flesh of ningyo. He convulsed within minutes of swallowing the last morsel and was dead by sunrise. The retainer and the peasants were accused of poisoning him and were sentenced to death.

But the fisherman, the ningyo and his mother never saw this sentence carried out. Th e daimyo’s demise threw the village into upheaval, which allowed the three of them to quietly slip away. With their abundant newfound wealth, they secured a fine home in a village even closer to the ocean. There, the fisherman and his ningyo were married, and birthed children with an aptitude for swimming who could stay below water for hours. They lived out the rest of their days in harmony, safe and far away from prying eyes.

Areej Quraishi’s fiction appears in The Normal School, Indiana Review, Sycamore Review, Baltimore Review, Porter House Review, BULL, Southern Humanities Review, and elsewhere. It has received accolades and finalist spots from Glimmer Train Press, CRAFT Literary, Salamander Magazine. Her writing explores familial relationships, cultural identity, and memory. Her surrealist fiction is inspired by myth and fairytales. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Washington—Seattle and a PhD from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where she was a Black Mountain Institute fellow. She is at work on a novel and two short story collections.