![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Willow Pattern
May. 18th, 2008 10:23 pmToday, my parents and I visited a pretty garden, full of ferns and rivers, apple trees and Granny's Bonnet. My favourite part was a Japanese-style tea-house built on stilts over the river, next to a red wooden bridge surrounded by giant rhubarb. I got my parents to help re-enact the willow pattern chase over the bridge.
The willow pattern story was probably invented only two hundred years ago to help sell more plates. It goes:
A wealthy man had a beautiful daughter. He wanted her to marry a rich Duke, but she had fallen in love with her father's lowly assistant. This made her father angry, so he built a high fence to keep the lovers apart. The Duke arrived by boat, with a box of jewels as a gift for the girl, but still she did not want to marry him. Her father decreed that she would marry the Duke on the day that the blossom fell from the willow trees. The night before the wedding, the girl's lover disguised himself as a servant and entered the palace to rescue her. They escaped with the jewels, and ran over a bridge as the girl's father gave chase with his whip in hand. Their love gave them speed, and they sailed away safely on the Duke's ship to a secluded island, where they lived happily for years. One day, however, the Duke learned where they were hiding, and sent soldiers who killed the lovers.
Sometimes, at the end of the tale, the gods take pity on the lovers and transform them into a pair of doves so they can remain together after death.
The willow pattern story was probably invented only two hundred years ago to help sell more plates. It goes:
A wealthy man had a beautiful daughter. He wanted her to marry a rich Duke, but she had fallen in love with her father's lowly assistant. This made her father angry, so he built a high fence to keep the lovers apart. The Duke arrived by boat, with a box of jewels as a gift for the girl, but still she did not want to marry him. Her father decreed that she would marry the Duke on the day that the blossom fell from the willow trees. The night before the wedding, the girl's lover disguised himself as a servant and entered the palace to rescue her. They escaped with the jewels, and ran over a bridge as the girl's father gave chase with his whip in hand. Their love gave them speed, and they sailed away safely on the Duke's ship to a secluded island, where they lived happily for years. One day, however, the Duke learned where they were hiding, and sent soldiers who killed the lovers.
Sometimes, at the end of the tale, the gods take pity on the lovers and transform them into a pair of doves so they can remain together after death.
