by Royall Tyler
So it hadn’t been a demon after all, but the diviner had seen it as a demon because that’s what the people first thought it was. Everyone admired how the diviner had even specified that the demon wasn’t going to do any harm or lay any curses. What a masterly insight that had been! On the other hand, no one thought much of Ki no Haseo. No doubt he was very learned, but it hadn’t been very clever of him to forget all about the diviner’s advice.
165.
IN THE NICK OF TIME
A moderately pious old nobleman, now a monk, lived in the southern part of the Capital. He was wealthy enough to have everything he wanted in life. On receiving a cryptic oracle in his own house, he sent for a yin-yang diviner named Kamo no Tadayuki to find out whether the oracle boded well or ill. Tadayuki determined that on such-and-such date the nobleman should stay strictly secluded at home, or risk being killed by robbers.
When the day came, the frightened nobleman barred his gate and admitted no one. Finally toward evening there was a pounding on the gate. At first the nobleman did not answer, but when the pounding continued he sent someone to find out who it was and to let the visitor know that the master of the house was in strict seclusion. The visitor identified himself as Taira no Sadamori, just back from the far northern province of Mutsu.
Sadamori was an old and close friend. He protested (through the servant) that night had overtaken him on this last stage of his journey home from the north and that in any case a taboo made it important for him not to arrive home that night. “Where else am I to go?” he asked. “What is this seclusion of yours about?”
The nobleman answered that he was keeping shut up on a diviner’s orders because otherwise he risked being murdered by robbers.
“In that case,” replied Sadamori, “you should be happy to ask me in. How could you even consider turning me away?”
This made sense. “All right,” the nobleman agreed, “but just you. You’ll have to send all your servants and retainers away first. I’m not taking any chances.”
Sadamori complied willingly. He sent his host word that under the circumstances he would not expect his host to greet him personally tonight. He would make himself comfortable in the guest wing and would see his host in the morning. Sadamori then ate dinner and went to bed.
In the middle of the night Sadamori heard someone try the gate. The robbers must have come. He armed himself and went to hide by the carriage house. Yes, it certainly was the robbers. They got the gate open with a sword, crowded inside, and went round to the south, front side of the mansion. Sadamori slipped in among them. He kept them away from where his host’s valuables were stored, steering them instead toward an empty part of the house.
“Here, here!” he cried. “This is the place to break in!” The robbers of course had no idea who he was and were about to begin when Sadamori realized his friend might really be killed. He would have to shoot them before they got inside. A tough-looking, armed robber was right next to him, but despite his fear he had to act. He shot the fellow from behind. The arrow went all the way through and stuck out the other side.
“They’re shooting from behind us!” shouted Sadamori. “Let’s get out!” He dragged the body inside.
“No, that was one of us shooting!” another robber cried bravely. “Never mind! Come on, let’s go in!”
Sadamori dashed up behind him and shot him straight through the middle. “They’re shooting, I tell you!” he shouted. “We have to get out of here!” He dragged the second body inside too and left it sprawled by the first.
From inside the house he began shooting the humming arrows that hunters use to start game. The robbers fled pell-mell toward the gate. Sadamori kept shooting at their backs and laid three robbers low before they even reached it. The rest of the band, which had started out as ten men, kept traveling. In the end four men lay dead within the range of Sadamori’s arrows, and a fifth, shot in the lower back and unable to run, lay collapsed in the ditch a few hundred yards beyond it. The next morning the remnants of the band were arrested.
That nobleman was very lucky to have had Lord Sadamori stop by. It would have been the end of him otherwise. Just think what would have happened if he had really kept up his seclusion!
166.
ASTRIDE THE CORPSE
A man once abandoned his wife of many years and left her so grief-stricken that she fell ill and died. Alas, since the poor woman had no parents and no close friends there was no one to take her body away. She just lay where she was. The neighbors who peeped in through a crack were frightened to see that her hair did not fall out and her bones stayed firmly knit together; and when they noticed that there was always a light in the house, and a sound of groaning, they got so afraid that they ran away.
The husband felt half dead with fear when he heard about all this. “How am I to avoid the ghost’s curse?” he wondered. “She died hating me and she’s bound to get me.” In his difficulty he sought help from a yin-yang diviner.
The diviner agreed that this was a bad situation, but he promised to do his best. “Please be aware, though,” he cautioned, “that the procedure is really terrifying. I want you to understand that clearly at the outset.”
At sundown the diviner led the husband to the corpse’s house. Just listening from outside was enough to make the husband’s hair stand on end, and the thought of going in was really more than he could bear, but under the diviner’s guidance he went in after all. It was true: his wife’s hair was still in place and her skeleton was still intact. The diviner sat him down on the skeleton’s back, gave him the hair to hold, and warned him at all costs not to let go of it. Then he read some spells, announced he would have to leave, and reminded the husband again to expect a terrifying experience. The husband, more dead than alive, was left alone astride the corpse clutching its hair.
Darkness fell. In the middle of the night the corpse suddenly said, “Oof! What a weight!” Then it stood up and began to run around. “Now to go look for that brute!” it went on, and charged off. The husband never let go of the hair, and the corpse eventually returned to the house and lay down again. There are no words to describe the husband’s terror, but he kept hold of the hair and stayed on the corpse till the cocks began to crow and the corpse fell silent.
At dawn the diviner came back. Having made sure the husband really had kept hold of the hair, he read some more spells over the corpse, then took the husband outside and told him he had nothing more to fear. The husband thanked him with tears of gratitude. Nothing ever did happen to him.
This happened not all that long ago, because the husband’s grandchildren are supposed to be alive still, and so are the diviner’s.
167.
TWINLEAF
The legendary musician Hakuga no Sammi spent one brightly moonlit night wandering up and down in front of the Suzaku Gate, near the palace, playing his bamboo flute. As he did so another man appeared, dressed just like Sammi himself, and began to play too. Sammi could not imagine who the fellow was, but the tone of his flute was truly divine. Neither man said a word.
The two met and played that way every moonlit night. The sound of the other’s flute was so extraordinary that Sammi, devoured by curiosity, at last suggested that they try exchanging their instruments. The other man willingly did so. Sammi found that his flute was of a quality unknown in the world.
The two saw each other often enough, but since the other never said anything about wanting his flute back, Sammi simply kept it. After Sammi’s death, His Majesty took possession of the flute and had all the best players of the time try it. Not one of them could get a note out of it.
In time His Majesty had the great flutist Jōzō try the flute. Jōzō played it as beautifully as Sammi himself. “This flute’s former owner is supposed to have gotten it at the Suzaku Gate,” said His Majesty, deeply impressed. “Go and play there yourself, Jōzō, and see what happens!”
The next moonlit night Jōzō went to the Suzaku Gate and began to play. “Aha, another one!�
�� cried a pleased voice from high in the gate’s upper story. Jōzō reported this to the emperor, who realized that the flute had belonged to a demon who lived in the gate.
The emperor called the flute Twinleaf because it had two leaves on it, one red and one green. Legend has it that every morning the two leaves had fresh dew on them.
Later on the flute became the property of Lord Michinaga and was eventually deposited in the Sutra Hall of the Byōdōin in Uji. Someone who saw it more recently noted that the red leaf had fallen off and that, alas, there was not a trace of dew.
168.
NO NIGHT TO BE OUT COURTING
In Emperor Daigo’s reign a certain Minister of the Right had a son named Tsuneyuki. The young man was both major counselor and commander of the Left Inner Guards, a very promising combination that clearly destined him for the highest posts in the imperial government. He was also handsome and amorous, and absorbed like no other in dreams of women. Every night he was off on one romantic expedition or another.
The minister’s residence was in the western part of the Capital. Tsuneyuki was in love with a woman in the eastern part of the city and his constant visits to her worried his parents a great deal because the streets were unsafe after dark. Again and again they tried in vain to keep him at home.
One night he rode off as usual, accompanied by a single mounted page. As they traveled east past the Bifukumon’in Gate, one of the southern gates into the palace compound, they saw a noisy crowd approaching with torches. “Who can they be?” the young lord asked. “Where can we hide?”
“I noticed when I came this way today that the north gate to the Shinsen Garden was open,” the page replied. “Let’s go in, my lord, and close the gate. You can wait there till they’ve gone by.”
Tsuneyuki hurriedly dismounted and crouched beside a gatepost.
The crowd started past. The two had kept the gate cracked open, and when they spied not people but demons they all but lost their wits with terror. Through the confusion of their own panic they heard a demon say, “Hmm. I smell a man! I’ll go catch him.” Something hurtled toward them and Tsuneyuki thought he was lost. Then it ran away again.
“What happened? Why didn’t you get him?” another cried.
“I couldn’t!” shouted Tsuneyuki’s would-be assailant.
“Why not? All right, you go after him!” Another demon rushed the gate, only to turn and flee.
“Well? Where is he?”
“I couldn’t touch him either!”
“What’s the matter with you? All right, I’ll do it!” With this boast the speaker charged. He got closer than the others, and his hands were almost on Tsuneyuki (who thought this was the end) when he too suddenly fled.
“What’s wrong?” a chorus greeted him.
“The Sonshō Darani! He’s got the Sonshō Darani on him!”
Suddenly all the torches went out. Footsteps ran off in all directions, then there was silence. The dark and quiet were even more eerily frightening than the demon’s assault, and the hair rose on Tsuneyuki’s head. Then he fainted.
At last, more dead than alive, he remounted his horse and set out for home. By the time he reached his room he was ill, and he collapsed with a high fever. His father sent someone to find out where Tsuneyuki had been, but learned only that the young master had been out late last night. Finally the minister came himself and found his son lying helpless in bed.
“What is it?” he asked, feeling Tsuneyuki’s body. It was burning hot.
“Oh sir,” cried Tsuneyuki’s nurse, “I just don’t know what the matter can be!” But when Tsuneyuki had told his story the nurse exclaimed, “Gracious! Last year my brother, who’s an exorcist, had me write out the Sonshō Darani and sew it into the collar of the young master’s robe. So it really has power, then! If it hadn’t been there, what would have become of the young master?” She pressed her hands to Tsuneyuki’s forehead and burst into tears.
After several days of a fever which caused his parents anguished worry, Tsuneyuki began to mend. A glance at the calendar showed that it had been the night when demons are known to walk abroad, and when for safety’s sake you should be careful to stay at home.
Obviously you should always have the Sonshō Darani on you. Why, Tsuneyuki had not even known it was there!
169.
LUMP OFF, LUMP ON
An old man had a big lump on the right side of his face, as big as a big tangerine. It made him so ugly that he avoided other people and instead worked alone in the mountains cutting wood. Once he got caught in an awful storm and had to stay in the mountains overnight.
No one else was around. He hid, wide awake and terrified, in a hollow tree. Feeling as lonely as he did, he breathed a sigh of relief when he heard other people coming. Then he peeked outside. The crowd, a hundred strong, was a horrible sight. Some in it were red dressed in green, some were black with a red loincloth, some had one eye or no mouth, and most were just indescribable. They built a fire as bright as the sun and made a circle round it, right in front of the old man’s tree. He was frightened nearly out of his wits.
One monster, apparently the chief, sat down by the fire in the place of honor, and the rest sat in twin rows to his right and left. Next, they all began drinking and carrying on the way people do. As the wine jar went round and round, the chief got awfully drunk. When a young monster with a tray made his way slowly up to the chief, mumbling something or other, the chief burst out laughing and waved his cup. They really were just like people! The young monster danced, and when he had finished another began. Each one took his turn, right on up to the senior monsters, and if some danced badly others danced well. The old man could hardly believe his eyes.
“This is the most fun we’ve ever had!” the chief declared. “Now let’s have something really special!”
Goodness knows what got into the old man then — perhaps some god or buddha put him up to it—but he suddenly wanted to get out there and dance. At first he checked himself, but the monsters had a fine rhythm going and the temptation was just too much. Out he burst from his hollow tree, with his hat down over his nose and an axe dangling from his belt, right before the chief.
The monsters jumped up. “What’s this?” they cried. The old man leaped high and squatted low, he twisted and wriggled all around with hoots and shouts of “Ei!” and “Ho!” till everyone burst out laughing.
“We’ve been having these parties for years,” chuckled the chief, “but no one like you has ever joined us! Be here every time from now on!”
“Say no more!” cried the old man. “I will! But it was all so sudden this time that I forgot how to end my dance right. If you liked me tonight, just wait till you see me dance properly!”
“You were wonderful!” the chief insisted. “Make sure you come again!”
One of the chief’s lieutenants was not quite convinced. “The old fellow’s full of promises,” he objected, “but I’m not so sure he will be back. We’d better keep something of his as security.”
That sounded like a good idea. The chief asked what they should take.
There was a buzz of voices. “What about the lump on his face?” the lieutenant suggested. “A lump’s good luck and he’ll miss it.”
“Oh please,” the old fellow begged, “take my eyes or my nose, but not my lump! I’ve had it for years! You’re too cruel!”
“Aha!” said the lieutenant. “You see? That’s what we need!”
A monster stepped up to the old man and twisted the lump off painlessly. “Be sure you’re at our next party!” he warned.
Soon it was dawn and the birds were singing. The monsters went away. The old man felt his face and found that the lump he had had for so long was gone. He forgot all about cutting wood and hurried home to his astonished wife.
Now, the old man next door had a lump on the left side of his face, and when he saw his neighbor’s was gone he wanted to know how the old fellow had done it. “What doctor did you go to?” he asked. “Please
tell me! I can’t stand mine!”
“It wasn’t a doctor, it was a monster.”
“Well, either way, I’ll just do whatever you did. So what did you do?”
The first old man told his story and the second listened carefully. He went to hide in the hollow tree, and sure enough the monsters came. They sat in a ring, drank and carried on, and roared, “Where’s that old man?”
The second old man was terribly afraid but he staggered out anyway. “Hurray!” the monsters shouted, “Here he is!”
“All right!” said the chief. “Now, dance!”
He danced, but his faltering steps had nothing in common with his neighbor’s gleeful zest.
“That was terrible,” the chief grumbled. “Give him back his lump!”
Up stepped a junior monster. “Here’s your lump back,” he said and stuck it on the other side. The old man had gotten himself two lumps instead of one.
170.
TAKE A GOOD LOOK!
Late one night a man was sleeping with a prostitute in a room under the festival reviewing stand on First Avenue. The wind was howling, the rain was pouring down, and the atmosphere was definitely spooky. Suddenly a passerby outside on the avenue sang, “Nothing lasts, no, all things pass …”
“What’s that, I wonder,” thought the man and cracked open the shutter to peek out. It was a horse-headed demon as tall as the roof. Frightened, he hastily closed up again and backed as far back in the room as he could, but the demon raised the shutter and stuck its face in. “That was a good look you got at me, yes, a very good look!” it growled.