Ancient Tales and Folk-Lore of Japan by Richard Gordon Smith (best novels ever txt) 📕

which latter we live, for some three hundred years. Nothing would induce him to change his place of abode, and I should never have wished him to do so until some twelve days ago.’

‘What has happened within these twelve wonderful days?’ asked Yehara.

‘Dear brother, I can stand it no longer,’ was his sister’s answer. ‘Up to twelve days ago all went well; but then a terrible thing happened. It was very dark and warm, and I was sitting outside our house looking at the clouds passing over the moon, and talking to my daughter. Suddenly there appeared, as if walking on the lilies of the pond, a white figure. Oh, so white, so wet, and so miserable to look at! It appeared to arise from the pond and float in the air, and then approached me slowly until it was within ten feet. As it came my child cried: “Why, mother, there comes O Sumi—do you know O Sumi?” I answered her that I did not, I think; but in truth I was so frightened I hardly know what I said. The figure was horrible to look at. It was that of a girl of eighteen or nineteen years, with hair dishevelled and hanging loose, over white and wet shoulders. Help me! help me!” cried the figure, and I was so frightened that I covered my eyes and screamed for my husband, who was inside. He came out and found me in a dead faint, with my child by my side, also in a state of terror. Hayashi had seen nothing. He carried us both in, shut the doors, and told me I must have been dreaming. “Perhaps,” he sarcastically added, “you saw the kappa which is said to dwell in the pond, but which none of my family have seen for over one hundred years.” That is all that my husband said on the subject. Next night, however, when in bed, my child seized me suddenly, crying in terror-stricken tones, “O Sumi—here is O Sumi—how horrible she looks! Mother, mother, do you see her?” I did see her. She stood dripping wet within three feet of my bed, the whiteness and the wetness and the dishevelled hair being what gave her the awful look which she bore. “Help me! Help me!” cried the figure, and then disappeared. After that I could not sleep; nor could I get my child to do so. On every night until now the ghost has come—O Sumi, as my child calls her. I should kill myself if I had to remain longer in that house, which has become a terror to myself and my child. My husband does not see the ghost, and only laughs at me; and that is why I see no way out of the difficulty but a separation.’

Yehara told his sister that on the following day he would call on Hayashi, and sent his sister back to her husband that night.

Next day, when Yehara called, Hayashi, after hearing what the visitor had to say, answered:

‘It is very strange. I was born in this house over twenty years ago; but I have never seen the ghost which my wife refers to, and have never heard about it. Not the slightest allusion to it was ever made by my father or mother. I will make inquiries of all my neighbours and servants, and ascertain if they ever heard of the ghost, or even of any one coming to a sudden and untimely end. There must be something: it is impossible that my little child should know the name Sumi,” she never having known any one bearing it.’

Inquiries were made; but nothing could be learned from the servants or from the neighbours. Hayashi reasoned that, the ghost being always wet, the mystery might be solved by drying up the pond—perhaps to find the remains of some murdered person, whose bones required decent burial and prayers said over them.

The pond was old and deep, covered with water plants, and had never been emptied within his memory. It was said to contain a kappa (mythical beast, half-turtle, half-man). In any case, there were many terrapin turtle, the capture of which would well repay the cost of the emptying.

[paragraph continues] The bank of the pond was cut, and next day there remained only a pool in the deepest part; Hayashi decided to clear even this and dig into the mud below.

At this moment the grandmother of Hayashi arrived, an old woman of some eighty years, and said:

‘You need go no farther. I can tell you all about the ghost. O Sumi does not rest, and it is quite true that her ghost appears. I am very sorry about it, now in my old age; for it is my fault—the sin is mine. Listen and I will tell you all.’

Every one stood astonished at these words, feeling that some secret was about to be revealed.

The old woman continued:

‘When Hayashi Hayato, your grandfather, was alive, we had a beautiful servant girl, seventeen years of age, called O Sumi. Your grandfather became enamoured of this girl, and she of him. I was about thirty at that time, and was jealous, for my better looks had passed away. One day when your grandfather was out I took Sumi to the pond and gave her a severe beating. During the struggle she fell into the water and got entangled in the weeds; and there I left her, fully believing the water to be shallow and that she could get out. She did not succeed, and was drowned. Your grandfather found her dead on his return. In those days the police were not very particular with their inquiries. The girl was buried; but nothing was said to me, and the matter soon blew over. Fourteen days ago was the fiftieth anniversary of this tragedy. Perhaps that is the reason of Sumi’s ghost appearing; for appear she must, or your child could not have known of her name. It must be as your child says, and that the first time she appeared Sumi communicated her name.’

The old woman was shaking with fear, and advised them all to say prayers at O Sumi’s tomb. This was done, and the ghost has been seen no more. Hayashi said:

‘Though I am a samurai, and have read many books, I never believed in ghosts; but now I do.’

47. The Spirit of the One-Eyed Priest, Yenoki, Appears to Sonobé

XLI THE SPIRIT OF YENOKI 1

THERE is a mountain in the province of Idsumi called Okiyama (or Oji Yam a); it is connected with the Mumaru-Yama mountains. I will not vouch that I am accurate in spelling either. Suffice it to say that the story was told to me by Fukuga Sei, and translated by Mr. Ando, the Japanese translator of our Consulate at Kobe. Both of these give the mountain’s name as Okiyama, and say that on the top of it from time immemorial there has been a shrine dedicated to Fudo-myo-o (Achala, in Sanskrit, which means ‘immovable,’ and is the god always represented as surrounded by fire and sitting uncomplainingly on as an example to others; he carries a sword in one hand, and a rope in the other, as a warning that punishment awaits those who are unable to overcome with honour the painful struggles of life).

Well, at the top of Okiyama (high or big mountain) is this very old temple to Fudo, and many are the pilgrimages which are made there annually. The mountain itself is covered with forest, and there are some remarkable cryptomerias, camphor and pine trees.

Many years ago, in the days of which I speak, there were only a few priests living up at this temple. Among them was a middle-aged man, half-priest, half-caretaker, called Yenoki. For twenty years had Yenoki lived at the temple; yet during that time he had never cast eyes on the figure of Fudo, over which he was partly set to guard; it was kept shut in a shrine and never seen by any one but the head priest. One day Yenoki’s curiosity got the better of him. Early in the morning the door of the shrine was not quite closed. Yenoki looked in, but saw nothing. On turning to the light again, he found that he had lost the use of the eye that had looked: he was stone-blind in the right eye.

Feeling that the divine punishment served him well, and that the gods must be angry, he set about purifying himself, and fasted for one hundred days. Yenoki was mistaken in his way of devotion and repentance, and did not pacify the gods; on the contrary, they turned him into a tengu (long-nosed devil who dwells in mountains, and is the great teacher of jujitsu).

But Yenoki continued to call himself a priest—‘Ichigan Hoshi,’ meaning the one-eyed priest—for a year, and then died; and it is said that his spirit passed into an enormous cryptomeria tree on the east side of the mountain. After that, when sailors passed the Chinu Sea (Osaka Bay), if there was a storm they used to pray to the one-eyed priest for help, and if a light was seen on the top of Okiyama they had a sure sign that, no matter how rough the sea, their ship would not be lost.

It may be said, in fact, that after the death of the one-eyed priest more importance was attached to his spirit and to the tree into which it had taken refuge than to the temple itself. The tree was called the Lodging of the One-eyed Priest, and no one dared approach it—not even the woodcutters who were familiar with the mountains. It was a source of awe and an object of reverence.

At the foot of Okiyama was a lonely village, separated from others by fully two ri (five miles), and there were only one hundred and thirty houses in it.

Every year the villagers used to celebrate the ‘Bon’ by engaging, after it was over, in the dance called ‘Bon Odori.’ Like most other things in Japan, the ‘Bon’ and the ‘Bon Odori’ were in extreme contrast. The Bon’ was a ceremony arranged for the spirits of the dead, who are supposed to return to earth for three days annually, to visit their family shrines—something like our All Saints’ Day, and in any case quite a serious religious performance. The ‘Bon Odori’ is a dance which varies considerably in different provinces. It is confined mostly to villages—for one cannot count the pretty geisha dances in Kyoto which are practically copies of it. It is a dance of boys and girls, one may say, and continues nearly all night on the village green. For the three or four nights that it lasts, opportunities for flirtations of the most violent kind are plentiful. There are no chaperons (so to speak), and (to put it vulgarly) every one ‘goes on the bust’! Hitherto-virtuous maidens spend the night out as impromptu sweethearts; and, in the village of which this story is told, not only is it they who let themselves go, but even young brides also.

So it came to pass that the village at the foot of Okiyama mountain—away so far from other villages—was a bad one morally. There was no restriction to what a girl might do or what she might not do during the nights of the ‘Bon Odori.’ Things went from bad to worse until, at the time of which I write, anarchy reigned during the festive days. At last it came to pass that after a particularly festive ‘Bon,’ on a beautiful moonlight night in August, the well-beloved and charming daughter of Kurahashi Yozaemon, O Kimi, aged eighteen years, who had promised her lover Kurosuke that she would meet him secretly that evening, was on her way to do so. After passing the last house in