by Royall Tyler
Her hair seemed to swell and thicken as she spoke. He only whipped his horse on harder. “You brute!” she screamed, and the earth shook. Now she was after him. “Sure enough!” he thought, and prayed to Kannon to save him. Despite the horse’s tremendous speed the demon caught up, but the horse’s rump was too thoroughly greased for its clutching hands to find a hold.
Glancing back, he saw a red face with one amber-yellow eye as huge and round as a cushion. The thing was greenish and nine feet tall. The three fingers on each hand had five-inch, knifelike nails, and the hair was like a snarl of weeds. Maddened now with fear he galloped on, calling on Kannon with might and main, till at last he reached the village.
“All right, I’ll get you next time!” said the demon, and suddenly vanished.
Panting and exhausted, the man dragged himself back as fast as he could to his lord’s mansion and arrived at twilight. He was too weak to answer the barrage of questions that greeted him. All the household could do was try to bring him round. But when the governor, who had been concerned all along, finally asked him to tell his story he did so. The governor scolded him for having risked his life over a trifling wager, then gave him the horse. The man went home well satisfied and told the tale again to his horrified family and servants.
A spirit began to haunt the house after that, and the man called in a yin-yang diviner to find out what the trouble was. The diviner told him to be very careful the next time the day when he had thwarted the demon came round. When the day did come, the man shut his gate to all comers.
Now, he happened to have a younger brother who had gone off with their mother to Mutsu, in the provincial governor’s entourage. This was the day when the younger brother came back and knocked at the gate. His older brother refused to talk with him except through a servant, and the only reply he got was, “I’m in strict seclusion. I’ll see you tomorrow. Try somewhere else in the meantime.”
“What do you mean?” the younger brother protested. “The sun has already set! I can go somewhere else, I suppose, since I’m alone. But what am I going to do with my baggage? I only just managed to come at all, and today was the only day I could find. Our mother has passed away, you see, and I wanted to tell you myself.”
The older brother had been worrying about his mother for years, both because she was old and because he loved her dearly. When this news was relayed to him, he broke down and in tears had his brother let in.
The younger brother entered, all in black, and first had something to eat on the veranda. Then the older brother came out to talk to him. Both wept. The older brother’s wife stayed behind the blinds that curtained the veranda off from the house proper and listened to the two men’s conversation.
Suddenly, for no reason she could see, the brothers fell to grappling fiercely and crashed over and over, locked together, on the floor. She shouted at them to stop. When her husband got his younger brother under him, he demanded the sword he kept by his pillow. She answered that he must have gone mad and refused to budge.
“Give it to me!” he barked. “Do you want to get me killed?”
Just then the younger brother turned the tables, got on top, and with one crunch bit off his older brother’s head. As he fled he turned back to glance at the wife. “That’s better now!” he exulted. His face was the demon’s. Then he vanished.
There was nothing the distraught household could do. As for the awful intruder’s baggage, it turned out to contain only animal bones and skulls. So the man died for a petty wager and everyone who heard the story called him a fool.
After playing a few more tricks, the demon disappeared.
15.
THE ROOTED CORPSE
The elder of two sisters was married and lived in the mistress’s apartment toward the back of her late father’s mansion. The younger had served for a time in a noble household but now lived at home. She had no husband or accepted lover, only occasional, casual visitors whom she saw in her room at the front of the house, by the double doors in the west wing. The house was near the crossing of Takatsuji and Muromachi streets in Kyoto.
At the age of twenty-seven the younger sister fell ill and died. Her body was left in her room, since there seemed to be nowhere else for her in the house, till her older sister and the rest of the household took her off to the burning ground at Toribeno.
They were about to unload the coffin from the carriage, in preparation for the usual funeral rites, when they noticed that it was oddly light and that the lid was ajar. Why, the body was gone! This was a shocking discovery. The body could not possibly have fallen out on the way, but they retraced their steps to make sure. Of course, they found nothing. But on reaching the house they thought they might as well check the room by the double doors. There she was, lying there as though she had never been moved!
The night wore on while the mourners discussed anxiously what to do. At dawn they put the body back in the coffin and carefully sealed the lid, then waited for night and another chance to proceed with the cremation. But at nightfall they again found the coffin open and were really terrified this time. The body was lying as before by the double doors, and it defeated every attempt to get it back where it belonged. They simply could not budge it. They might as well have tried to move a rooted tree.
There she was, and apparently that was where she meant to stay. “That’s what you want, is it?” one level-headed mourner finally said to the corpse. “You like it here? All right, this is where we’ll leave you. But we are going to have to get you out of sight, you know!”
They took up the floor, and she was as light as a feather when they lowered her through the hole. So they buried her under the floor and built a good-sized mound over her. Then the family and servants all moved away, since no one wanted to stay on in the same house with a corpse. Over the years the house fell to ruin and eventually disappeared.
For some reason, not even the common people seemed to be able to live near the mound. People claimed that awful things happened there. As a result, the mound stood all alone, without a single hut for forty or fifty feet around it. In time a shrine was built on top of it, for one reason or another, and they say the shrine is still there.
16.
AN OLD, OLD GHOST
Demon Hall is in the Capital, north of Third Avenue and east of the East Tōin Palace. The place is haunted.
Long ago, before the Capital ever grew up, there was a great pine tree at the site. An armed rider passing by got caught in a violent thunderstorm, so he dismounted and led his horse under the tree to seek shelter from the downpour. A lightning bolt split him and his mount in two and killed them. That rider is the ghost.
Later on, the Capital came and people built houses all over the area, but the ghost refused to leave. They say it’s still around and that that’s why awful things have often happened there. It certainly is an old ghost!
17.
SYRUP
The stingy senior monk of a mountain temple made a batch of sweet syrup, guzzled some all alone, then carefully put the jug up on a shelf. His little acolyte got none. In fact, he warned the acolyte that the stuff would kill you if you ate it.
The boy badly wanted some too, and one day when his master was out he got the jug down. Unfortunately, he spilled some syrup in the process and got it all over his robe and hair, but this did not discourage him from gulping several mouthfuls. When he was done, he smashed his master’s precious jug to bits on a rock outside.
The monk came back to find the boy crying as though his heart would break. “What’s the matter?” he asked.
“Your jug!” sobbed the boy. “I broke your good jug by mistake and I just didn’t know what you’d do to me, so I decided I’d be better off dead and I ate a big mouthful of that stuff you told me was poison, but it didn’t work. I ate more and when that didn’t work I tried smearing it all over my robe and hair but I’m still not dead!”
The monk got no more of his syrup, and he lost his nice jug, too. What a clever boy! He’d no
doubt have made a fine scholar.
18.
NOT QUITE THE RIGHT ROBE
Once a very great monk was making clandestine visits to an exalted gentleman’s residence. The gentleman knew nothing of the affair until one day, late in the third moon, when he went to the palace.
While he was gone, the monk got in and made himself at home with the gentleman’s wife. A lady-in-waiting hung his nice, soft robe right on her master’s clothes rack. Meanwhile the gentleman sent a servant back from the palace to fetch him a less formal outfit than the one he had on, since he was now off to have a good time with a band of courtiers. “Bring me my hat and my hunting cloak,” he ordered.
The lady-in-waiting took the hanging cloak from the rack, put it in a bag with the hat, and sent it off. By the time the servant caught up with the gentleman, he and his friends had already gotten where they were going. The gentleman opened the bag. There was the hat. But where was the cloak? He took out instead a rumpled, brownish robe.
He understood immediately. Of course, all his companions saw the robe too, and he was as embarrassed as he was angry. There was nothing he could do, though. He simply folded the robe up, put it back in the bag, and returned it with a curt verse that let his wife know he now knew. He never went back to his house again.
The lady-in-waiting was a silly woman, and the room had been dark. In her haste she had taken the monk’s robe instead of the lord’s hunting cloak, since both were on the same rack and felt equally soft.
When the wife saw her husband’s letter she was distraught, but there was nothing she could do either.
19.
THE NOSE
The monk Zenchin was so learned and holy that people often commissioned prayers from him, which made him quite comfortably wealthy and well able to keep his chapel and his own lodging in very good repair. There were always offerings on his altar, the altar lamps were always burning, and the small crowd of monks who lived around him kept the place lively. The bath was heated every day, and the bathhouse resounded with cheerful voices. When laymen added their houses to the community, a bustling village grew up.
Zenchin had a long nose. Its five or six inches, reddish-purple with a pimply surface like a mandarin orange, dangled below his chin and itched terribly. Zenchin had a hole made in a square tray, just big enough to put the nose through, to protect his face from the fire while he boiled the nose in a pot of water. When done the nose would be a dark purple. Next, Zenchin would lay it out flat on a pad and have someone trample it. A vaporish sort of stuff would puff out from each pimple, and with diligent pressing a white worm would ooze from each pore. Each pore would yield to the tweezers half an inch of worm. Then Zenchin would put his nose back in the pot and bring the water back up to a good boil. Soon his nose would shrink to about the size of anyone else’s, but in two or three days it would be as bad as ever.
So most days Zenchin’s nose was big, and to eat he would have to have an acolyte sit opposite him with a sort of paddle, a foot long and an inch wide, to lift his nose up and out of the way till he was finished. Some who did this for him lifted with a bit too much enthusiasm, and then he would get angry and not eat. That is why he made sure that the one acolyte who did it right was always there to help him.
One day this acolyte was ill and failed to appear for his usual duty. Zenchin wanted his breakfast but there was no one to hold up his nose. What a pickle! Finally one of the servant boys piped up, “I’ll hold up his nose! I can do it just as well as that other fellow!” An older servant reported this to Zenchin, who decided he liked the boy well enough and would give him a try. He called the boy in. The boy picked up the nose paddle, sat very nicely opposite Zenchin, and held up his nose just right, neither too high nor too low. “He’s wonderful!” thought Zenchin as he sipped his gruel. “Even better than the other one!”
Alas, the boy felt a sneeze coming on, turned aside, and let out a good a-choo. His hand shook, the paddle quivered, and the nose slipped off and plopped into the gruel. Gruel splashed all over Zenchin’s face and the boy’s. Zenchin was furious. “You rascal!” he bellowed as he wiped gruel off his face and pate. “A nasty little beggar is just what you are! You wouldn’t have done that if you’d gone to hold up the nose of some fine gentleman! Disgusting little idiot! Get out! Get out!”
The boy got out, but on his way he loosed a parting shot. “I certainly would go hold up some fine gentleman’s nose,” he retorted, “if any gentleman in all the world ever had a nose like yours!”
Zenchin’s students had to dive for cover before they exploded laughing.
20.
TWO BUCKETS OF MARITAL BLISS
At a temple in Izumi province, each trip to the bell tower took the bell-ringer monk past a statue of Kichijōten. Everyone knows how beautiful this goddess is. Seeing her day after day was quite enough to drive every other thought from the monk’s mind. He took to hugging the statue, pinching it, or even going through the motions of kissing it.
In time he dreamed he was fondling Kichijōten as usual, on his way to ring the bell, when she suddenly moved.
“My dear,” said she, “I’m touched by your loving attentions. I’m going to be your wife. Go to Inamino in Harima on such-and-such a date and I’ll meet you there.”
The bell ringer awoke blissfully happy. He could still see her lovely face before him. The day she had mentioned seemed so far away!
Feverish with anticipation, he could hardly believe the day would ever arrive; but when it did, there he was at Inamino, pacing impatiently up and down. At last he saw a radiantly beautiful woman coming toward him, dressed in brilliant colors. Could she be the one? He was trembling and could not bring himself to hail her.
“How nice to see you here!” she said when she got to him. “Now, make us a house!”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“Why, there’s nothing to it. You just get to work!”
A man came up to them. “Who are you?” he asked, “What are you doing out here in the fields?”
“We’re planning to live here,” answered the monk, “but we have no house and I don’t quite know where we’re going to get one from, either. I’m wondering what to do.”
“Say no more! You’ve nothing to worry about as long as I’m here. I’ll get you your house built. Wait and I’ll bring some men.”
The man was soon back with a good crew of workers. Each brought a joist or a beam, and everything else they needed just kept coming while they worked. Some of the materials apparently belonged to the workmen themselves, while some seemed to have been purchased by the lady. At all events, a beautiful house quickly rose on the spot. Beside himself with joy, the monk led his lady in and lay down with her.
“I’m your wife now,” the goddess reminded him. “If you love me, you mustn’t get involved with anyone else. For you, I’m the only one. Remember that.”
Even if she had been a perfectly ordinary woman he happened to be fond of, he would hardly have objected; but under the circumstances he agreed with all his heart. “Of course!” he promised. “I wouldn’t dream of wandering away from you!”
“Thank you, my dear,” said the goddess.
He began growing rice and found that the least plot he worked gave more than anyone else’s whole farm. Every comfort was his now, and in fact he was the richest man in the whole county. People came from far away just to ask for his help, and he always gave them what they wanted. His herds of horses and cattle were vast. Finally even the governor of the province began to defer to him and listen to his advice.
After several years of this pleasant life, he had to go off for a few days on business to another county. While he was there, a retainer of his just happened to mention a very nice girl he knew of. “You could have her come and massage your feet or something, sir,” the retainer suggested.
“Well,” thought the goddess’s husband, “even if I start getting ideas, I suppose it doesn’t really matter as long as I don’t actually do anything with h
er.”
“Fine!” he said. “I’ll try her.”
The girl arrived, dressed to kill. He had her begin working on his feet, but one thing led to another and soon they were a lot more intimate than that. Not that he had fallen in love with her, but he did keep her by him as long as his trip lasted.
His business over, he got back home to find his wife looking very put out.
“You swore you wouldn’t,” she said, “and now you’ve gone and done it! Oh, how could you? I’m leaving. I can’t stay here any more.”
He started justifying himself and making excuses, assuring her that she was still his only love. She, meanwhile, went to fetch two big buckets of whitish liquid.
“Here,” she said, “I’ve saved it all since we’ve been together. You can keep it!” Then she vanished.
It was, of course, all the semen he had ejaculated into his heavenly wife.
Life was never quite the same for him after that, but he was still far from poor. So he gave up being a monk for good and lived on simply as a prosperous farmer.
21.
HOME IN A CHEST
At one time Kaishū, the abbot of Gion temple, was paying secret visits to a mansion which belonged to one of the Capital’s most prominent provincial governors. The governor caught wind of the affair but for some time pretended not to notice.
Once while the governor was out, Kaishū slipped into the house and made himself right at home. When the governor came back, he noticed that his wife and the other women seemed a bit flustered, and he understood right away what the trouble must be. In the women’s part of the house he noted that a long storage chest which normally stood open was now closed and locked. Obviously that was where they had the fellow hidden. The governor called a senior retainer and had him summon two workmen. Then he ordered the chest carried immediately to Gion as a fee for having some sutras chanted there. Off the chest went on the workmen’s shoulders, accompanied by the retainer bearing a formal note. Though horrified, the wife and her women kept quiet.