■ あらすじ　
　源頼光<みなもとのらいこう>の四天王の一人、渡辺綱（わたなべ
のつな）は大江山の鬼が羅生門から京へ入り悪事を働いていると聞き、羅生門へ行った。綱は鬼の首領・酒呑童子<しゅてんどうじ>に襲われ、格闘の末に刀で相手の腕を切り落としたものの、敵には逃げられた。綱は陰陽師<おんみょうじ>の安倍晴明に相談し、切り落とした鬼の腕を石櫃<いしびつ>に入れ七日間守ることとしたが、七日目の夜に綱の伯母を名乗る老婆が来て鬼の腕を見せて欲しいと涙ながらに頼まれた。老婆は念願叶うと腕を奪い、たちまち鬼の姿に戻って大江山へ逃げ去り、頼光に次第を話した綱はいつか大江山へ退治に行こうと誓った。

■ Outline of this story
　Watanabe-no-Tsuna, one of the four followers of Minamoto-no-Raiko, heard that the ogres dwelling on Oyeyama Hill had slipped into the city of Kyoto from Rashomon and were making a lot of mischief. When he went to Rashomon himself, Tsuna was attacked by Shutendoji, the chief of the ogres. In the fight, he cut off one of the arms of Shutendoji, who, however, managed to escape. After consulting Abe-no-Seimei, a court wizard, he put the severed arm in a strong stone chest, keeping it locked up for seven days. But on the night of the seventh day, an old woman claiming to be Tsuna's aunt came to his door and begged him to show her the ogre's arm. When Tsuna granted her wish and opened the chest, the woman grabbed the arm, instantly turned into an ogre, and ran for Oyeyama Hill. Tsuna told the story to Raiko, and vowed to march to Oyeyama Hill and vanquish the ogres there someday.

Note
　This epic tale is also taken up in "Noh chants" written by Nobumitsu Kanze and in picture scrolls. In the common version, the ogre whose arm is severed is Ibarakidoji, one of Shutendoji's underlings, and the Rashomon episode follows the conquest of Oyeyama Hill. Mrs. T.H. James reversed the order of these two incidents in her translation, and was followed by the French and the Spanish translations prepared from her English.