Who Is Tomotada?
The young samurai who married a willow spirit
Tomotada is the hero of "The Story of Aoyagi" in Lafcadio Hearn's Kwaidan. He is a young samurai serving Hatakeyama Yoshimune, the lord of Noto. He was handsome and talented in learning and in waka poetry.
Sent on a mission to Kyoto, Tomotada is caught in a snowstorm in the mountains of Echizen and stays the night with an old couple in a cottage beside some willow trees. There he meets their daughter, Aoyagi. He tells her of his love in a poem, and she answers his feelings in a poem of her own. Breaking the rule that a retainer may not marry without his lord's permission, he takes Aoyagi with him to Kyoto. When she is taken into the household of the Hosokawa family there, Tomotada writes his grief in a Chinese poem and sends it to her. Lord Hosokawa reads it and arranges for the two to be properly married.
But five years later, Aoyagi cries out that her tree is being cut down, and vanishes. Tomotada becomes a priest, returns to Echizen, and holds a memorial service before the stumps of three willow trees standing where the cottage used to be.
