Tamatebako- Japanese ArtifactArtifact"The Forbidden Box"

The Gift of the Sea Palace

After the fisherman Urashima Tarō rescued a turtle and was taken to Ryūgū-jō, the Dragon Palace beneath the sea, he spent what seemed like three days with the sea princess Otohime. They feasted in chambers of coral and pearl. Through the palace windows, all four seasons turned at once while no time seemed to pass. When he told Otohime he wished to return home, she consented. She pressed a jeweled lacquered box into his hands, the Tamatebako, and gave him one warning: he must never open it. She did not tell him what was inside.

The Opening

Urashima Tarō surfaced and walked to his village. It was gone. Centuries had passed during what felt like three days. His family was dead and no one knew his name. He sat on the shore and broke Otohime's prohibition.

From the box, a plume of white smoke rose and wrapped around him. His hair went white. His skin withered. The years the Dragon Palace had held back fell upon his body at once. In the Tango no Kuni Fudoki, he becomes an old man in a single breath. In the Otogizōshi retellings, he crumbled to dust, or was transformed into a crane that flew over the sea toward the palace he could never reach again.