Many questions surround the anonymous medieval work known as Saigyo monogatari (translated here as “The Tale of Saigyo”, and for simplicity generally referred to as “the Tale”). When was it first created? By whom, and for what intended audience? By what process did it proliferate into the many variant texts that have come down to us? How many other variants may once have existed? What is the relationship between the existing variants, and which can be considered the earliest? Might this be the “original text”, or is it too a reworking of some now lost original text? ¶ In the last forty years, these questions have been taken up by a number of scholars, but to date there has been no full-length study that takes into account the wide range of variant texts and attempts in any systematic way to analyze them in a search for answers. The present study seeks to fill this gap. I compare 11 texts, consisting of representatives from all the main variant categories and including all the texts which are known to be, or which seem to me to be, early forms. ...