Ancient Tales and Folk-Lore of Japan Part 2

Ichibei knew that the ghost of Yoichi was not likely to tell him lies, and to ask for vengeance unjustly. Therefore he continued talking to Asayo and her husband, listening to their lies, and wondering what would be the fitting procedure.

Ten o'clock pa.s.sed thus, and eleven. At twelve o'clock, when Asayo for the sixth or seventh time was a.s.suring Ichibei that everything possible had been done for her blind husband, a wind storm suddenly arose, and in the midst of it was heard the sound of the amma's flute, just as Yoichi played it; it was so unmistakably his that Asayo screamed with fear.

At first distant, nearer and nearer approached the sound, until at last it seemed to be in the room itself. At that moment a cold puff of air came down the tem-mado, and the ghost of Yoichi was seen standing beneath it, a cold, white, glimmering and sad-faced wraith.

Tamataro and his wife tried to get up and run out of the house; but they found that their legs would not support them, so full were they of fear.

Tamataro seized a lamp and flung it at the ghost; but the ghost was not to be moved. The lamp pa.s.sed through him, and broke, setting fire to the house, which burned instantly, the wind fanning the flames.

Ichibei made his escape; but neither Asayo nor her husband could move, and the flames consumed them in the presence of Yoichi's ghost. Their cries were loud and piercing.

Ichibei had all the ashes swept up and placed in a tomb. He had buried in another grave the flute of the blind amma, and erected on the ground where the house had been a monument sacred to the memory of Yoichi.

It is known as FUEZUKA NO KWAIDAN.A 1.

Footnotes.

27:1 Told to me by f.u.kuga.

28:1 Shampooer.

30:1 Hole in the roof of a j.a.panese house, in place of a chimney.

31:1 A hard block of wood used in stretching cotton cloth.

35:1 The flute ghost tomb.

6. Jogen Sights the Haunted Temple.

V A HAUNTED TEMPLE IN INABA PROVINCEA 1.

ABOUT the year 1680 there stood an old temple on a wild pine-clad mountain near the village of Kisaichi, in the Province of Inaba. The temple was far up in a rocky ravine. So high and thick were the trees, they kept out nearly all daylight, even when the sun was at its highest. As long as the old men of the village could remember the temple had been haunted by a s.h.i.+to dama and the skeleton ghost (they thought) of some former priestly occupant. Many priests had tried to live in the temple and make it their home but all had died. No one could spend a night there and live.

At last, in the winter of 1701, there arrived at the village of Kisaichi a priest who was on a pilgrimage. His name was Jogen, and he was a native of the Province of Kai.

Jogen had come to see the haunted temple. He was fond of studying such things. Though he believed in the s.h.i.+to dama form of spiritual return to earth, he did not believe in ghosts. As a matter of fact, he was anxious to see a s.h.i.+to dama, and, moreover, wished to have a temple of his own. In this wild mountain temple, with a history which fear and death prevented people from visiting or priests inhabiting, he thought that he had (to put it in vulgar English) 'a real good thing.' Thus he had found his way to the village on the evening of a cold December night, and had gone to the inn to eat his rice and to hear all he could about the temple.

Jogen was no coward; on the contrary, he was a brave man, and made all inquiries in the calmest manner.

'Sir,' said the landlord, 'your holiness must not think of going to this temple, for it means death. Many good priests have tried to stay the night there, and every one has been found next morning dead, or has died shortly after daybreak without coming to his senses. It is no use, sir, trying to defy such an evil spirit as comes to this temple. I beg you, sir, to give up the idea. Badly as we want a temple here, we wish for no more deaths, and often think of burning down this old haunted one and building a new.'

Jogen, however, was firm in his resolve to find and see the ghost.

'Kind sir,' he answered, 'your wishes are for my preservation; but it is my ambition to see a s.h.i.+to dama, and, if prayers can quiet it, to reopen the temple, to read its legends from the old books that must lie hidden therein, and to be the head priest of it generally.'

The innkeeper, seeing that the priest was not to be dissuaded, gave up the attempt, and promised that his son should accompany him as guide in the morning, and carry sufficient provisions for a day.

Next morning was one of brilliant suns.h.i.+ne, and Jogen was out of bed early, making preparations. Kosa, the innkeeper's twenty-year-old son, was tying up the priest's bedding and enough boiled rice to last him nearly two full days. It was decided that Kosa, after leaving the priest at the temple, should return to the village, for he as well as every other villager refused to spend a night at the weird place; but he and his father agreed to go and see Jogen on the morrow, or (as some one grimly put it) 'to carry him down and give him an honourable funeral and decent burial.'

Jogen entered fully into this joke, and shortly after left the village, with Kosa carrying his things and guiding the way.

The gorge in which the temple was situated was very steep and wild. Great moss-clad rocks lay strewn everywhere. When Jogen and his companion had got half-way up they sat down to rest and eat. Soon they heard voices of persons ascending, and ere long the innkeeper and some eight or nine of the village elders presented themselves.

'We have followed you,' said the innkeeper, 'to try once more to dissuade you from running to a sure death. True, we want the temple opened and the ghosts appeased; but we do not wish it at the cost of another life. Please consider!'

'I cannot change my mind,' answered the priest. 'Besides, this is the one chance of my life. Your village elders have promised me that if I am able to appease the spirit and reopen the temple I shall be the head priest of the temple, which must hereafter become celebrated.'

Again Jogen refused to listen to advice, and laughed at the villagers' fears. Shouldering the packages that had been carried by Kosa, he said: 'Go back with the rest. I can find my own way now easily enough. I shall be glad if you return to-morrow with carpenters, for no doubt the temple is in sad want of repairs, both inside and out. Now, my friends, until to-morrow, farewell. Have no fear for me: I have none for myself.'

The villagers made deep bows. They were greatly impressed by the bravery of Jogen, and hoped that he might be spared to become their priest. Jogen in his turn bowed, and then began to continue his ascent. The others watched him as long as he remained in view, and then retraced their steps to the village; Kosa thanking the good fortune that had not necessitated his having to go to the temple with the priest and return in the evening alone. With two or three people he felt brave enough; but to be here in the gloom of this wild forest and near the haunted temple alone--no: that was not in his line.

As Jogen climbed he came suddenly in sight of the temple, which seemed to be almost over his head, so precipitous were the sides of the mountain and the path. Filled with curiosity, the priest pressed on in spite of his heavy load, and some fifteen minutes later arrived panting on the temple platform, or terrace, which, like the temple itself, had been built on driven piles and scaffolding.

At first glance Jogen recognised that the temple was large; but lack of attention had caused it to fall into great dilapidation. Rank gra.s.ses grew high about its sides; fungi and creepers abounded upon the damp, sodden posts and supports; so rotten, in fact, did these appear, the priest mentioned in his written notes that evening that he feared the spirits less than the state of the posts which supported the building.

Cautiously Jogen entered the temple, and saw that there was a remarkably large and fine gilded figure of Buddha, besides figures of many saints. There were also fine bronzes and vases, drums from which the parchment had rotted off, incense-burners, or koros, and other valuable or holy things.

Behind the temple were the priests' living quarters; evidently, before the ghost's time, the temple must have had some five or six priests ever present to attend to it and to the people who came to pray.

The gloom was oppressive, and as the evening was already approaching Jogen bethought himself of light. Unpacking his bundle, he filled a lamp with oil, and found temple-sticks for the candles which he had brought with him. Having placed one of these on either side of the figure of Buddha, he prayed earnestly for two hours, by which time it was quite dark. Then he took his simple meal of rice, and settled himself to watch and listen. In order that he might see inside and outside the temple at the same time, he had chosen the gallery. Concealed behind an old column, he waited, in his heart disbelieving in ghosts, but anxious, as his notes said, to see a s.h.i.+to dama.

For some two hours he heard nothing. The wind--such little as there was--sighed round the temple and through the stems of the tall trees. An owl hooted from time to time. Bats flew in and out. A fungusy smell pervaded the air.

Suddenly, near midnight, Jogen heard a rustling in the bushes below him, as if somebody were pus.h.i.+ng through. He thought it was a deer, or perhaps one of the large red-faced apes so fond of the neighbourhood of high and deserted temples; perhaps, even, it might be a fox or a badger.

The priest was soon undeceived. At the place whence the sound of the rustling leaves had come, he saw the clear and distinct shape of the well-known s.h.i.+to dama. It moved first one way and then another, in a hovering and jerky manner, and from it a voice as of distant buzzing proceeded; but--horror of horrors!--what was that standing among the bushes?

The priest's blood ran cold. There stood the luminous skeleton of a man in loose priest's clothes, with glaring eyes and a parchment skin! At first it remained still; but as the s.h.i.+to dama rose higher and higher the ghost moved after it--sometimes visible, sometimes not.

Higher and higher came the s.h.i.+to dama, until finally the ghost stood at the base of the great figure of Buddha, and was facing Jogen.

Cold beads of sweat stood out on the priest's forehead; the marrow seemed to have frozen in his bones; he shook so that he could hardly stand. Biting his tongue to prevent screaming, he dashed for the small room in which he had left his bedding, and, having bolted himself in, proceeded to look through a crack between the boards. Yes! there was the figure of the ghost, still seated near the Buddha; but the s.h.i.+to dama had disappeared.

None of Jogen's senses left him; but fear was paralysing his body, and he felt himself no longer capable of moving--no matter what should happen. He continued, in a lying position, to look through the hole.

The ghost sat on, turning only its head, sometimes to the right, sometimes to the left, and sometimes looking upwards.

For full an hour this went on. Then the buzzing sound began again, and the s.h.i.+to dama reappeared, circling and circling round the ghost's body, until the ghost vanished, apparently having turned into the s.h.i.+to dama; and after circling round the holy figures three or four times it suddenly shot out of sight.

Next morning Kosa and five men came up to the temple. They found the priest alive but paralysed. He could neither move nor speak. He was carried to the village, dying before he got there.

Much use was made of the priest's notes. No one else ever volunteered to live at the temple, which, two years later, was struck by lightning and burned to the ground. In digging among the remains, searching for bronzes and metal Buddhas, villagers came upon a skeleton buried, only a foot deep, near the bushes whence Jogen had first heard the sounds of rustling.

Undoubtedly the ghost and s.h.i.+to dama were those of a priest who had suffered a violent death and could not rest.

The bones were properly buried and ma.s.ses said, and nothing has since been seen of the ghost.

All that remains of the temple are the moss-grown pedestals which formed the foundations.

Footnotes.

36:1 In many stories in MS. volumes I have told of s.h.i.+to dama or astral spirits. So much evidence have I got from personal acquaintances as to their existence, and even frequent occurrence, that I almost believe in them myself. Some say that there are two shapes--the roundish oblong tadpole shape, and the more square-fronted eyed shape. Priests declare the shapes and s.e.xes to be all alike, indistinguishable from each other and square-fronted, as in No. 2. My hunter, Oto of Itami, who, with his son, saw the old barber's wife's s.h.i.+to dama after she had died, declared that the shape was like an egg with a tail. At Tsuboune, near Naba, two or three dozen people who had seen the s.h.i.+to dama of a deaf man and that of a fisher-girl there declared both to be square-fronted. Again: At Tos.h.i.+ s.h.i.+ma the old men declare that there was a carpenter whose s.h.i.+to dama appeared five or six times some fifteen years ago, and that it was red, instead of having the ordinary phosph.o.r.escent smoky-white appearance. s.h.i.+to dama, I take it, is the astral form that a spirit can a.s.sume if it wishes to wander the earth after death. This is the story of a dissatisfied spirit which haunted a temple and also showed itself as a ghost.

7. Rosetsu Watches the Carp.

VI A CARP GIVES A LESSON IN PERSEVERANCEA 1.

BETWEEN the years 1750 and 1760 there lived in Kyoto a great painter named Okyo-Maruyama Okyo. His paintings were such as to fetch high prices even in those days. Okyo had not only many admirers in consequence, but had also many pupils who strove to copy his style; among them was one named Rosetsu, who eventually became the best of all.

When first Rosetsu went to Okyo's to study he was, without exception, the dullest and most stupid pupil that Okyo had ever had to deal with. His learning was so slow that pupils who had entered as students under Okyo a year and more after Rosetsu overtook him. He was one of those plodding but unfortunate youths who work hard, harder perhaps than most, and seem to go backwards as if the very G.o.ds were against them.

I have the deepest sympathy with Rosetsu. I myself became a bigger fool day by day as I worked; the harder I worked or tried to remember the more manifestly a fool I became.

Rosetsu, however, was in the end successful, having been greatly encouraged by his observations of the perseverance of a carp.

Many of the pupils who had entered Okyo's school after Rosetsu had left, having become quite good painters. Poor Rosetsu was the only one who had made no progress whatever for three years. So disconsolate was he, and so little encouragement did his master offer, that at last, crestfallen and sad, he gave up the hopes he had had of becoming a great painter, and quietly left the school one evening, intending either to go home or to kill himself on the way. All that night he walked, and half-way into the next, when, tired out from want of sleep and of food, he flung himself down on the snow under the pine trees.

Some hours before dawn Rosetsu awoke, hearing a strange noise not thirty paces from him. He could not make it out, but sat up, listening, and glancing towards the place whence the sound--of splas.h.i.+ng water--came.

As the day broke he saw that the noise was caused by a large carp, which was persistently jumping out of the water, evidently trying to reach a piece of sembei (a kind of biscuit made of rice and salt) lying on the ice of a pond near which Rosetsu found himself. For full three hours the fish must have been jumping thus unsuccessfully, cutting and bruising himself against the edges of the ice until the blood flowed and many scales had been lost.

Rosetsu watched its persistency with admiration. The fish tried every imaginable device. Sometimes it would make a determined attack on the ice where the biscuit lay from underneath, by charging directly upwards; at other times it would jump high in the air, and hope that by falling on the ice bit by bit would be broken away, until it should be able to reach the sembei; and indeed the carp did thus break the ice, until at last he reached the prize, bleeding and hurt, but still rewarded for brave perseverance.

Rosetsu, much impressed, watched the fish swim off with the food, and reflected.

'Yes,' he said to himself: 'this has been a moral lesson to me. I will be like this carp. I will not go home until I have gained my object. As long as there is breath in my body I will work to carry out my intention. I will labour harder than ever, and, no matter if I do not progress, I will continue in my efforts until I attain my end or die.'

After this resolve Rosetsu visited the neighbouring temple, and prayed for success; also he thanked the local deity that he had been enabled to see, through the carp's perseverance, the line that a man should take in life.

Rosetsu then returned to Kyoto, and to his master, Okyo, told the story of the carp and of his determination.

Okyo was much pleased, and did his best for his backward pupil. This time Rosetsu progressed. He became a well-known painter, the best man Okyo ever taught, as good, in fact, as his master; and he ended by being one of j.a.pan's greatest painters.

Rosetsu took for crest the leaping carp.

Footnotes.

44:1 One day my old painter Busetsu was talking with me about j.a.pan's greatest painters, and of one of them he told a strange story. It was interesting in one thing especially, and that was that the name of Rosetsu I could not find mentioned in Louis Gonse's book, though, of course, Maruyama Okyo was. Five names were given as those of the best pupils of Okyo; but Rosetsu was not mentioned. I wrote to my friend the Local Governor, who is an authority on j.a.panese paintings. His answer was, 'You are quite right: Rosetsu was one of Okyo's best pupils, perhaps the best.'

VII LEGENDS TOLD BY A FISHERMAN ON LAKE BIWA, AT ZEZE.

WHILE up fis.h.i.+ng on Lake Biwa, and later shooting in the vicinity (shooting is not allowed on the lake itself, the water being considered a holy place), I often made Zeze my head-quarters. At the edge of the lake, just there, stands the cottage of an oldA old fisherman and his sons. They have made a little harbour for their boats; but they cultivate no ground, their cottage standing in wild gra.s.s near a solitary willow. The reason of this is that they are rich, or comparatively so, being the owners of an immense fish-trap, which runs out into the lake nearly a mile, and is a disgrace to all civilised ideas of conservation. They bought the rights from the Daimio, who owned Zeze Castle a hundred years or more ago (this is my own guess at the date, for I never asked or noted it). The trap catches enough to keep the whole of four families comfortable.

Two or three interesting little legends (truths the old senior fisherman called them) I got, either from himself or from his son while visiting his trap, or sitting under his willow, fis.h.i.+ng myself--for stories.

'Surely the Danna San could not be interested in the simple old stories of bygone days? Even my sons do not care for them nowadays!'

'I care for anything of interest,' I said. 'And you will greatly please me by telling me any fishermen's legends of hereabouts, or even of the north-western end of the lake if you know any.'

'Well, there is our Fire Ball,' said the old fisherman. That is a curious and unpleasant thing. I have seen it many times myself. I will begin with that.'

8. The Fire-Ball or 's.h.i.+to Dama' of Akechi.

LEGEND.

'Many years ago there was a Daimio who had constructed at the foot of the southern spur of Mount Hiyei a castle, the ruins of which may still be seen just to the north of the military barracks of the Ninth Regiment in Otsu. The name of the Daimio was Akechi Mitsuhide, and it is his s.h.i.+to dama that we see now in wet weather on the lake. It is called the spirit of Akechi.

'The reason of it is this. When Akechi Mitsuhide defended himself against the Toyotomi, he was closely invested; but his castle held out bravely, and could not be taken in spite of Toyotomi's greater forces. As time went on, the besiegers became exasperated, and prevailed upon a bad fisherman from Magisa village to tell where was the source of water which supplied Akechi's castle. The water having been cut off, the garrison had to capitulate, but not before Akechi and most of his men had committed suicide.

'From that time, in rain or in rough weather, there has come from the castle a fire-ball, six inches in diameter or more. It comes to wreak vengeance on fishermen, and causes many wrecks, leading boats out of their course. Sometimes it comes almost into the boat. Once a fisherman struck it with a bamboo pole, breaking it up into many fiery bits; and on that occasion many boats were lost.

'In full it is called "The Spider Fire of the Spirit of the Dead Akechi." That is all, sir, that I can tell of it--except that often have I seen it myself, and feared it.'

'That is very interesting,' said I, 'and quite what I like. Can you tell me any more?'

'Perhaps, if Danna San found interest in that simple story, he would like to know the reason of why we always have such a terrible storm over the lake on February 25: so I will tell of that also.'

9. O Tani San's Tub Gets Swamped.

LEGEND.

'Long ago there lived in the village of Komatsu, on the south-eastern side of the lake, a beautiful girl called O Tani. She was the daughter of a wealthy farmer, and of a studious nature as far as it was possible for a girl to be so in those days; that is to say, she was for ever wis.h.i.+ng to learn and to know things which were not always within the province of women to know. With the intention of inquiring and learning, she frequently crossed the lake in a boat alone, to visit a certain talented and clever young monk, who was the chief priest at one of the smaller temples situated at the foot of Mount Hiyei San, just over there where you are looking now.

'So deeply impressed was O Tani San with the priest's knowledge, she lost her heart and fell in love with him. Her visits became more frequent. Often she crossed the lake alone, in spite of her parents' protests, when the waves were too high for the safety even of a hardy fisherman like myself.

'At last O Tani could resist no longer. She felt that she must tell the good priest of her love for him, and see if she could not persuade him to renounce the Church and run away with her.

'The monk was greatly sorrowed, and did not quite know what to say, or how to put the girl off. At last he thought that he would give her an impossible task. Knowing that the weather on Lake Biwa towards the end of February is nearly impossible as far as the navigation of small boats is concerned, he said, probably not for a moment meaning it seriously: '"O Tani San, if you successfully crossed the lake on the evening of February 25 in a was.h.i.+ng-tub, it might be possible that I should cast off my robes and forget my calling to carry out your wishes."

'O Tani did not think of the impossible, nor did she quite understand the depth of the priest's meaning; young and foolish as she was with her blind love, she sculled herself home, thinking that the next time she crossed the lake it would be in the was.h.i.+ng-tub and to carry off the young priest as her husband. She was supremely happy.

'At last the 25th of February arrived. O Tani had taken care that the best and largest was.h.i.+ng-tub had been left near the borders of the lake. After dark she embarked in her frail craft, and without the least fear started.

'When she was about half-way across a fearful storm broke over Hiyei Mountain. The waves arose, and the wind blew with blinding force. Moreover, the light that was usually burning on the Hiyei San side of the lake, which the priest had promised should be especially bright this night, had been blown out. It was not long before poor O Tani's tub was capsized, and in spite of her efforts to keep afloat she sank beneath the waves to rise no more.

'It is said by some that the priest himself put out the light, so as to cut off the last possible chance of O Tani's reaching the sh.o.r.e, being over-zealous in his thoughts of good and evil.