Japanese Ghost Stories

by Lafcadio Hearn

  ‘Hōïchi San! – Hōïchi San! – come home with us at once!’

  Reprovingly he spoke to them:

  ‘To interrupt me in such a manner, before this august assembly, will not be tolerated.’

  Whereat, in spite of the weirdness of the thing, the servants could not help laughing. Sure that he had been bewitched, they now seized him, and pulled him up on his feet, and by main force hurried him back to the temple – where he was immediately relieved of his wet clothes, by order of the priest. Then the priest insisted upon a full explanation of his friend’s astonishing behavior. Hōïchi long hesitated to speak. But at last, finding that his conduct had really alarmed and angered the good priest, he decided to abandon his reserve; and he related everything that had happened from the time of first visit of the samurai.

  The priest said:

  ‘Hōïchi, my poor friend, you are now in great danger! How unfortunate that you did not tell me all this before! Your wonderful skill in music has indeed brought you into strange trouble. By this time you must be aware that you have not been visiting any house whatever, but have been passing your nights in the cemetery, among the tombs of the Heiké; and it was before the memorial-tomb of Antoku Tennō that our people to-night found you, sitting in the rain. All that you have been imagining was illusion – except the calling of the dead. By once obeying them, you have put yourself in their power. If you obey them again, after what has already occurred, they will tear you in pieces. But they would have destroyed you, sooner or later, in any event … Now I shall not be able to remain with you to-night: I am called away to perform another service. But, before I go, it will be necessary to protect your body by writing holy texts upon it.’

  Before sundown the priest and his acolyte stripped Hōïchi: then, with their writing-brushes, they traced upon his breast and back, head and face and neck, limbs and hands and feet – even upon the soles of his feet, and upon all parts of his body – the text of the holy sûtra called Hannya-Shin-Kyo.fn7 When this had been done, the priest instructed Hōïchi, saying:

  ‘To-night, as soon as I go away, you must seat yourself on the verandah, and wait. You will be called. But, whatever may happen, do not answer, and do not move. Say nothing and sit still – as if meditating. If you stir, or make any noise, you will be torn asunder. Do not get frightened; and do not think of calling for help – because no help could save you. If you do exactly as I tell you, the danger will pass, and you will have nothing more to fear.’

  After dark the priest and the acolyte went away; and Hōïchi seated himself on the verandah, according to the instructions given him. He laid his biwa on the planking beside him, and, assuming the attitude of meditation, remained quite still – taking care not to cough, or to breathe audibly. For hours he stayed thus.

  Then, from the roadway, he heard the steps coming. They passed the gate, crossed the garden, approached the verandah, stopped – directly in front of him.

  ‘Hōïchi!’ the deep voice called. But the blind man held his breath, and sat motionless. ‘Hōïchi!’ grimly called the voice a second time. Then a third time – savagely:

  ‘Hōïchi!’

  Hōïchi remained as still as a stone – and the voice grumbled:

  ‘No answer! – that won’t do! … Must see where the fellow is.’ …

  There was a noise of heavy feet mounting upon the verandah. The feet approached deliberately – halted beside him. Then, for long minutes – during which Hōïchi felt his whole body shake to the beating of his heart – there was dead silence.

  At last the gruff voice muttered close to him:

  ‘Here is the biwa; but of the biwa-player I see – only two ears! … So that explains why he did not answer: he had no mouth to answer with – there is nothing left of him but his ears … Now to my lord those ears I will take – in proof that the august commands have been obeyed, so far as was possible.’ …

  At that instant Hōïchi felt his ears gripped by fingers of iron, and torn off! Great as the pain was, he gave no cry. The heavy footfalls receded along the verandah – descended into the garden – passed out to the roadway – ceased. From either side of his head, the blind man felt a thick warm trickling; but he dared not lift his hands …

  Before sunrise the priest came back. He hastened at once to the verandah in the rear, stepped and slipped upon something clammy, and uttered a cry of horror; for he saw, by the light of his lantern, that the clamminess was blood. But he perceived Hōïchi sitting there, in the attitude of meditation – with the blood still oozing from his wounds.

  ‘My poor Hōïchi!’ cried the startled priest – ‘what is this? … You have been hurt?’

  At the sound of his friend’s voice, the blind man felt safe. He burst out sobbing, and tearfully told his adventure of the night.

  ‘Poor, poor Hōïchi!’ the priest exclaimed – ‘all my fault! – my very grievous fault! … Everywhere upon your body the holy texts had been written – except upon your ears! I trusted my acolyte to do that part of the work; and it was very, very wrong of me not to have made sure that he had done it! … Well, the matter cannot now be helped; we can only try to heal your hurts as soon as possible … Cheer up, friend! – the danger is now well over. You will never again be troubled by those visitors.’

  With the aid of a good doctor, Hōïchi soon recovered from his injuries. The story of his strange adventure spread far and wide, and soon made him famous. Many noble persons went to Akamagaséki to hear him recite; and large presents of money were given to him – so that he became a wealthy man … But from the time of his adventure, he was known only by the appellation of Mimi-nashi-Hōïchi: ‘Hōïchi-the-Earless’.

  Jikininki

  Once, when Musō Kokushi, a priest of the Zen sect, was journeying alone through the province of Mino, he lost his way in a mountain-district where there was nobody to direct him. For a long time he wandered about helplessly; and he was beginning to despair of finding shelter for the night, when he perceived, on the top of a hill lighted by the last rays of the sun, one of those little hermitages, called anjitsu, which are built for solitary priests. It seemed to be in ruinous condition; but he hastened to it eagerly, and found that it was inhabited by an aged priest, from whom he begged the favor of a night’s lodging. This the old man harshly refused; but he directed Musō to a certain hamlet, in the valley adjoining where lodging and food could be obtained.

  Musō found his way to the hamlet, which consisted of less than a dozen farm-cottages; and he was kindly received at the dwelling of the headman. Forty or fifty persons were assembled in the principal apartment, at the moment of Musō’s arrival; but he was shown into a small separate room, where he was promptly supplied with food and bedding. Being very tired, he lay down to rest at an early hour; but a little before midnight he was roused from sleep by a sound of loud weeping in the next apartment. Presently the sliding-screens were gently pushed apart; and a young man, carrying a lighted lantern, entered the room, respectfully saluted him, and said:

  ‘Reverend Sir, it is my painful duty to tell you that I am now the responsible head of this house. Yesterday I was only the eldest son. But when you came here, tired as you were, we did not wish that you should feel embarrassed in any way: therefore we did not tell you that father had died only a few hours before. The people whom you saw in the next room are the inhabitants of this village: they all assembled here to pay their last respects to the dead; and now they are going to another village, about three miles off – for by our custom, no one of us may remain in this village during the night after a death has taken place. We make the proper offerings and prayers; then we go away, leaving the corpse alone. Strange things always happen in the house where a corpse has thus been left: so we think that it will be better for you to come away with us. We can find you good lodging in the other village. But perhaps, as you are a priest, you have no fear of demons or evil spirits; and, if you are not afraid of being left alone with the body, you will be very welcome to the use of this p
oor house. However, I must tell you that nobody, except a priest, would dare to remain here to-night.’

  Musō made answer:

  ‘For your kind intention and your generous hospitality, I am deeply grateful. But I am sorry that you did not tell me of your father’s death when I came; for, though I was a little tired, I certainly was not so tired that I should have found difficulty in doing my duty as a priest. Had you told me, I could have performed the service before your departure. As it is, I shall perform the service after you have gone away; and I shall stay by the body until morning. I do not know what you mean by your words about the danger of staying here alone; but I am not afraid of ghosts or demons: therefore please to feel no anxiety on my account.’

  The young man appeared to be rejoiced by these assurances, and expressed his gratitude in fitting words. Then the other members of the family, and the folk assembled in the adjoining room, having been told of the priest’s kind promises, came to thank him – after which the master of the house said:

  ‘Now, reverend Sir, much as we regret to leave you alone, we must bid you farewell. By the rule of our village, none of us can stay here after midnight. We beg, kind Sir, that you will take every care of your honorable body, while we are unable to attend upon you. And if you happen to hear or see anything strange during our absence, please tell us of the matter when we return in the morning.’

  All then left the house, except the priest, who went to the room where the dead body was lying. The usual offerings had been set before the corpse; and a small Buddhist lamp – tōmyō – was burning. The priest recited the service, and performed the funeral ceremonies – after which he entered into meditation. So meditating he remained through several silent hours; and there was no sound in the deserted village. But, when the hush of the night was at its deepest, there noiselessly entered a Shape, vague and vast; and in the same moment Musō found himself without power to move or speak. He saw that Shape lift the corpse, as with hands, devour it, more quickly than a cat devours a rat – beginning at the head, and eating everything: the hair and the bones and even the shroud. And the monstrous Thing, having thus consumed the body, turned to the offerings, and ate them also. Then it went away, as mysteriously as it had come.

  When the villagers returned next morning, they found the priest awaiting them at the door of the headman’s dwelling. All in turn saluted him; and when they had entered, and looked about the room, no one expressed any surprise at the disappearance of the dead body and the offerings. But the master of the house said to Musō:

  ‘Reverend Sir, you have probably seen unpleasant things during the night: all of us were anxious about you. But now we are very happy to find you alive and unharmed. Gladly we would have stayed with you, if it had been possible. But the law of our village, as I told you last evening, obliges us to quit our houses after a death has taken place, and to leave the corpse alone. Whenever this law has been broken, heretofore, some great misfortune has followed. Whenever it is obeyed, we find that the corpse and the offerings disappear during our absence. Perhaps you have seen the cause.’

  Then Musō told of the dim and awful Shape that had entered the death-chamber to devour the body and the offerings. No person seemed to be surprised by his narration; and the master of the house observed:

  ‘What you have told us, reverend Sir, agrees with what has been said about this matter from ancient time.’

  Musō then inquired:

  ‘Does not the priest on the hill sometimes perform the funeral service for your dead?’

  ‘What priest?’ the young man asked.

  ‘The priest who yesterday evening directed me to this village,’ answered Musō. ‘I called at his anjitsu on the hill yonder. He refused me lodging, but told me the way here.’

  The listeners looked at each other, as in astonishment; and, after a moment of silence, the master of the house said:

  ‘Reverend Sir, there is no priest and there is no anjitsu on the hill. For the time of many generations there has not been any resident-priest in this neighborhood.’

  Musō said nothing more on the subject; for it was evident that his kind hosts supposed him to have been deluded by some goblin. But after having bidden them farewell, and obtained all necessary information as to his road, he determined to look again for the hermitage on the hill, and so to ascertain whether he had really been deceived. He found the anjitsu without any difficulty; and, this time, its aged occupant invited him to enter. When he had done so, the hermit humbly bowed down before him, exclaiming: ‘Ah! I am ashamed! – I am very much ashamed! – I am exceedingly ashamed!’

  ‘You need not be ashamed for having refused me shelter,’ said Musō. ‘You directed me to the village yonder, where I was very kindly treated; and I thank you for that favor.’

  ‘I can give no man shelter,’ the recluse made answer; ‘and it is not for the refusal that I am ashamed. I am ashamed only that you should have seen me in my real shape – for it was I who devoured the corpse and the offerings last night before your eyes … Know, reverend Sir, that I am a jikininkifn1 – an eater of human flesh. Have pity upon me, and suffer me to confess the secret fault by which I became reduced to this condition.

  ‘A long, long time ago, I was a priest in this desolate region. There was no other priest for many leagues around. So, in that time, the bodies of the mountain-folk who died used to be brought here – sometimes from great distances – in order that I might repeat over them the holy service. But I repeated the service and performed the rites only as a matter of business; I thought only of the food and the clothes that my sacred profession enabled me to gain. And because of this selfish impiety I was reborn, immediately after my death, into the state of a jikininki. Since then I have been obliged to feed upon the corpses of the people who die in this district: every one of them I must devour in the way that you saw last night … Now, reverend Sir, let me beseech you to perform a Ségaki-servicefn2 for me: help me by your prayers, I entreat you, so that I may be soon able to escape from this horrible state of existence.’ …

  No sooner had the hermit uttered this petition than he disappeared; and the hermitage also disappeared at the same instant. And Musō Kokushi found himself kneeling alone in the high grass, beside an ancient and moss-grown tomb of the form called go-rin-ishi,fn3 which seemed to be the tomb of a priest.

  Mujina

  On the Akasaka Road, in Tōkyō, there is a slope called Kii-no-kuni-zaka – which means the Slope of the Province of Kii. I do not know why it is called the Slope of the Province of Kii. On one side of this slope you see an ancient moat, deep and very wide, with high green banks rising up to some place of gardens; and on the other side of the road extend the long and lofty walls of an imperial palace. Before the era of street-lamps and jinrikishas,1 this neighborhood was very lonesome after dark; and belated pedestrians would go miles out of their way rather than mount the Kii-no-kuni-zaka, alone, after sunset.

  All because of a Mujina that used to walk there.

  The last man who saw the Mujina was an old merchant of the Kyōbashi quarter, who died about thirty years ago. This is the story, as he told it:

  One night, at a late hour, he was hurrying up the Kii-no-kuni-zaka, when he perceived a woman crouching by the moat, all alone, and weeping bitterly. Fearing that she intended to drown herself, he stopped to offer her any assistance or consolation in his power. She appeared to be a slight and graceful person, handsomely dressed; and her hair was arranged like that of a young girl of good family. ‘O-jochū,’fn1 he exclaimed, approaching her – ‘O-jochū, do not cry like that! … Tell me what the trouble is; and if there be any way to help you, I shall be glad to help you.’ (He really meant what he said; for he was a very kind man.) But she continued to weep – hiding her face from him with one of her long sleeves. ‘O-jochū,’ he said again, as gently as he could – ‘please, please listen to me! … This is no place for a young lady at night! Do not cry, I implore you! – only tell me how I may be of some help to you!’ Slow
ly she rose up, but turned her back to him, and continued to moan and sob behind her sleeve. He laid his hand lightly upon her shoulder, and pleaded: ‘O-jochū! – O-jochū! – O-jochū! … Listen to me, just for one little moment! … O-jochū! – O-jochū!’ … Then that O-jochū turned around, and dropped her sleeve, and stroked her face with her hand; and the man saw that she had no eyes or nose or mouth – and he screamed and ran away.

  Up Kii-no-kuni-zaka he ran and ran; and all was black and empty before him. On and on he ran, never daring to look back; and at last he saw a lantern, so far away that it looked like the gleam of a firefly; and he made for it. It proved to be only the lantern of an itinerant soba-seller,fn2 who had set down his stand by the road-side; but any light and any human companionship was good after that experience; and he flung himself down at the feet of the soba-seller, crying out, ‘Ah! – aa!! – aa!!!’ …

  ‘Koré! Koré!’ roughly exclaimed the soba-man. ‘Here! what is the matter with you? Anybody hurt you?’

  ‘No – nobody hurt me,’ panted the other – ‘only … Ah! – aa!’ …

  ‘– Only scared you?’ queried the peddler, unsympathetically. ‘Robbers?’

  ‘Not robbers – not robbers,’ gasped the terrified man … ‘I saw … I saw a woman – by the moat; and she showed me … Ah! I cannot tell you what she showed me!’ …

  ‘Hé! Was it anything like THIS that she showed you?’ cried the soba-man, stroking his own face – which therewith became like unto an Egg … And, simultaneously, the light went out.

  Rokuro-Kubi

  Nearly five hundred years ago there was a samurai, named Isogai Héïdazaëmon Takétsura, in the service of the Lord Kikuji, of Kyūshū.1 This Isogai had inherited, from many warlike ancestors, a natural aptitude for military exercises, and extraordinary strength. While yet a boy he had surpassed his teachers in the art of swordsmanship, in archery, and in the use of the spear, and had displayed all the capacities of a daring and skillful soldier. Afterwards, in the time of the Eikyōfn1 war, he so distinguished himself that high honors were bestowed upon him. But when the house of Kikuji came to ruin, Isogai found himself without a master. He might then easily have obtained service under another daimyō; but as he had never sought distinction for his own sake alone, and as his heart remained true to his former lord, he preferred to give up the world. So he cut off his hair, and became a traveling priest – taking the Buddhist name of Kwairyō.