The Tanuki and the White Snake

23 Mar 2011 1 Comment

by Zack Davisson in Magical Animal Stories, Tanuki Stories, Yōkai Stories Tags: , , ,

Translated from Edo Tokyo Kaii Hyakumonogatari

In front of the gate of Yanaka Ten-O temple, there was a barber named Hokkoshi Junto who was very fond of birds.  Juno kept a great variety of birds, both large and small. But recently, when he went to feed them in the morning, he found that the birds were disappearing one-by-one.  Someone must be stealing his precious birds, Junto thought. So he hid himself in the dark one night to catch the culprit in the act.

But he saw nothing. Well, if there was no human thief, Junto thought, surely this must be the handiwork of some rouge dog or cat.  He resolved to shoot the beast if he ever caught it feeding on his birds.

With this occupying his thoughts, Junto returned home to his bed and lay down to sleep.  No sooner had his head touched his pillow than a beautiful and elegant lady of courtly bearing, no more than twenty years old, appeared before him.  She spoke to Junto.

“I am the White Snake who has lived in the five-storied pagoda in Yanaka Ten-O temple, and protected this district for more than a hundred years.  I have many grandchildren who also live in the temple and protect the people.  But recently a Great Tanuki has come down from Dokan Mountain and taken up residence in the temple.  He has been feasting on my family, on the small white snakes. Soon will come to eat me too.  We have lived here for over a hundred years in peace, and our fear of this Great Tanuki is such that it cannot be expressed.  When all the baby snakes have become his food, and when he has finished with me, there will be no more white snakes in Yanaka Ten-O. ”

“Not only my family is in peril. This Great Tanuki has also been gorging himself on the birds that you keep.  He has escaped you unseen and unnoticed.  So I have come to you in your dreams that I may show you your true enemy.  We are helpless, and need the power of humans to rid us of this Great Tanuki.  If you find it difficult to believe what I say, go to the temple graveyard in the morning and you will find the aftermath of your bird-thief.  I beg of you, please hurry and destroy this evil tanuki.”

With that said, Junto opened his eyes and found himself in his own room, alone.

A strange dream indeed, thought Junto, and worth investigating.  The following morning he went with all possible speed to the graveyard of Yanaka Ten-O temple, and found ample evidence of the Great Tanuki’s deeds.  The feathers and bones of his beautiful birds were scattered carelessly about.

The dream was proved true beyond a shadow of a doubt, and Junko gathered the young men of the village to deliver the White Snake’s vengeance. The Great Tanuki was discovered lurking in the temple grounds and destroyed.

The Appearance of a Kappa

15 Mar 2011 Leave a comment

by Zack Davisson in Kappa Stories Tags: , ,

Translated from Edo Tokyo Kaii Hyakumonogatari

In the Meiwa era (1764-72), near the village of Takekura in Honjyo-Go, a gang of tradesmen were gathered around a strange living creature that they had almost beaten to death.  Their supervisor happened on the scene and stopped them, then sent for Ooda Chogen to see if the thing could be identified.   Chogen quickly arrived and said “This is what we call a suiko (water tiger).  Over in the valley they call it a kappa.” Chogen then reached into his breast pocket and produced a drawing so he could compare the similarities and differences. (It is said that a copy of that same picture was made by Ito Chohei in the mid- Bunsei era (1823)).

This was the second time that Chogen had encountered this particular strange living creature.  He had made the sketch after his first encounter, and the thing before him now showed no discernible differences.   It was about 2 shaku long (60.6 centimeters) from head to foot,  and looked like it was covered in moss.  The body was as slippery as a catfish, but the hair was as black as palm-tree hair. The arms and legs resembled the skin of an eel, and on the top of the head was a depressed bowl.  The back and the belly was the same color.

During the Kyoho era (1716-36), excess children were sometimes abandoned in the rice fields in anticipation of the Imperial Inspection of farmer households.  This strange living creature was said to resemble those abandoned human children.

The Dead Wife Who Didn’t Leave

08 Mar 2011 Leave a comment

by Zack Davisson in Yūrei Stories Tags: , , ,

Translated from Nihon no Yurei Banashi

The Voice of the Dead Wife

Long ago, deep in the mountains of Shikoku, a husband and wife lived happily alone far away from the nearest village in a small house. In the autumn of one year, the wife of that happy couple fell suddenly ill and was confined to bed.

But, because the couple lived so very far away from the nearest doctor in the village, they had no medicine. The wife’s fever grew hotter every day, and the husband could do nothing but cool down her body with cool water.

The wife’s condition worsened every day. The husband never left his wife’s side, and tended to her every moment of every day. One day, seeing the pain on his wife’s face, the husband sought to comfort her agony.

“My love, we are the type of couple who can never be separated. No matter what happens, please say that you will never leave my side.”

“I am so happy you to hear you say that, my husband, because that is my feelings exactly.  As it always has been, no matter what may occur in the future, I will never leave you.”

“Then let us make a promise,” the husband said, “no matter who is the first to die,  we will not bury that person in a grave.”

“That is for the best,” answered the wife, “I know that I have not much life left in this body. Do not break the promise you make to me know.  Do not put my body in a grave, but leave me here as I am so that I may always be by your side.”

With that said, the woman relaxed with a peaceful look on her face, and exhaled her last breath.  As he had promised, the husband didn’t bury her, but left her as she had died, inside the house, lying in bed.

In this way, seven days passed.  Nothing of note happened during those seven days,  and the husband went about his business as usual.  But on the night of the seventh day…

“Let’s go outside, shall we?”

The husband heard these words in a thin voice, but from where they came he could not say.

“Eh?  Who said that? There is no one else here…”

The husband turned his eyes towards the mysterious voice, and saw nothing but the dead body of his wife.

“That’s strange…but there is no way I heard her voice!  I must be imagining things.”

But even as he thought this, he didn’t really believe it.  So he turned to his wife’s body and said:

“You say you want to go outside, but where do you want to go?”

Even so, he was shocked to get an answer:

“Yes, I am bored just lying here all day.  The moon must be beautiful tonight.  Let us go out and view it.”

“Its fine to say that,” the husband replied, still unsettled, “but you are dead.”

With that, the wife spoke no more.

Let’s Go Outside, Shall We?

After that, two or three days passed uneventfully.  But on the evening of the fourth day, a traveling salesman lost his way passing over the mountains while making his way towards the village.  Seeing the couple’s remote cottage, he knocked on the door.

“Hello?  Would you be so kind as to let me stay just this night?  I have lost my way, and find myself in trouble.”

“That is a tight spot,” said the husband, “but come in and make yourself at home.”

With that said, the traveling salesman went into the cottage.  But the husband still had some errands to run outside, and said:

“Excuse me, but I must go out for a bit.  Please wait for me here.”

The traveling salesman had been hoping for some company as well as a place to stay,  and was a bit downhearted when the husband left him alone.  Sitting in the cottage, he heard a small voice.

“Let’s go outside, shall we?”

The voice, however weak, was unmistakably a woman’s voice.  The traveling salesman thought it was strange, but answered:

“Where do you want to go?”

“The moon must be beautiful tonight.  Let us go outside to view it.”

“Indeed it must be beautiful.  All right then, let us go outside.”

Just has he answered, a woman appeared wrapped in a long white kimono.  She stood before him wavering, as if blowing in a breeze. And she said:

“Well then, shall we go?”

and she reached out a stark white hand to him.  The traveling salesman looked closer at her and saw that she had no feet.

“Ah!  A yurei!”

The traveling salesman was astonished and stepped back two or three feet.  But he was no weakling, lacking in courage.  Indeed he was a robust and brave man.  He muttered to himself:

“OK now…this yurei must want to whisk me off to the land of the dead.  Well she will not find such easy prey.”

With that, he sprang at the woman, grabbed her by the throat and threw her from the house. He stepped to the door to await her challenge, but there was nothing before his eyes. The woman had vanished.

After a bit, the husband returned from his errand.

The traveling salesman flew into his story of the mysterious encounter.

“That was a strange thing indeed!  Hah!  But maybe it was just the fog playing tricks on me after all!”

But instead of being entertained, the husband was furious:

“What have you done?  I show you a little sympathy, let you stay at my home, and you throw my wife out the door? Then you go out with her!  If you want to stay in my cottage, go find my wife and bring her back!”

The chastised travelling salesman slowly plodded out the door, and began his task of wandering the dark forest looking for the yurei he had so roughly handled.  But even with the bright light of the moon to guide him, the wife was never seen again.

This story is sometimes told about a fleeing soldier running from the Heike wars. The legend comes from Shikoku, from Mt. Iya, and for a yurei story has very few variations.  It has the nature of a love story, and is a tale of compassion.

Why do Japanese Ghosts Not Have Feet?

20 Jan 2011 Leave a comment

by Zack Davisson in Essays on Kaidan, Yūrei Stories Tags: , ,

Yurei_Japanese_Ghost

Translated from Sore de Honto?

To learn much more about Japanese Ghosts, check out my book Yurei: The Japanese Ghost

The gentle drops of falling rain. A lonely willow tree standing near a graveyard. And a Japanese ghost, called a yurei, waiting below.  This is our image of a yurei, and when we imagine this picture of the yurei, it has no feet.

The uniform image of a yurei has come from the Middle Ages to the modern day.  But in the earlier days, at a time when people were mortally afraid of the power of spirits, yurei actually had feet.

The image of a footless yurei, known as the ashi ga nai yurei, became established in the Edo period by kaidan tales like “Yotsuya Kaidan” and “Bancho Sarayashiki.”  But even before these kaidan, the footless yurei had gained popularity in the works of artist Maryuama Okyo. (1733-1795).   His paintings were so overwhelmingly popular that they influenced the designs of the kabuki stage, until Okyo’s image of the yurei became the accepted form of Japanese ghosts.

Maruyama_Okyo_The_Ghost_of_Oyuki

But why did he paint his yurei without feet?  There are several proposed explanations.  One says that his images were drawn in dim light, that only illuminated the top half of the person leaving the legs and feet in darkness.   Keio University professor Ikeda Yasaburo proposed the theory in his book “Nihon no Yurei” that Okyo was inspired by the haze of incense smoke rising into the sky, and drew his yurei as if they were half composed of this smoke.  Another theory looks at the long robes of Bunraku puppet theater which hide the feet of female puppets.  Kabuki theater took inspiration from Bunraku, and it is possible that the hidden feet of the puppets was adopted into live theater.  It is most likely that from one or more of these explanations comes the popular image of the footless Japanese ghost.

…and yet, it cannot be said that all yurei are footless. You can often hear the sounds of ghostly footsteps in traditional kaidan stories.  In the popular kaidan Botan Doro the arrival of the yurei Otsuyu is announced by the karan, koron of her wooden geta sandles.  And in Noh theater, many of the ghostly characters sport magnificent footware.

Further Reading:

To read more about Japanese ghosts, check out:

The Ghost of Oyuki

How Do You Say Ghost in Japanese?

Two Tales of Ubume

29 Dec 2010 8 Comments

by Zack Davisson in Yūrei Stories Tags: , , , ,

Translated from Nihon no Yurei

The name Tsukiji nowadays brings to mind a bustling fish market in Tokyo, but it was not always so.  In the olden days, the area known as Tsukiji was packed with temples, mostly belonging to the Honkan-ji temple complex. .  The area was also covered in cemeteries.

Along the banks of the Sumida River that flows near Tsukiji, there were also stands selling fresh fish and the sweet sake for children known as amazake.  In one story, late every night a woman clutching a child would come to a certain amazake dealer to buy the sweet sake from him, which she would then give to her child to drink.  The sake dealer, sensing something mysterious about this woman, followed her from his stall one night and watched her as she made her way towards the main hall of the temple, where she disappeared like a blown-out candle. When she vanished, the sake dealer could hear the cry of a baby coming from somewhere in the cemetery. Tracking the sound to a freshly-dug grave, the sake dealer enlisted the help of some others to dig up the grave,   and when opening the coffin discovered a crying baby nestled in the arms of its mother’s corpse.  So it is said.

I heard this scary story many times when I was a child.  And of course, there are many variations of the same story.   Kaidan of the child-bearing yurei known as ubume are very old, and yet the story is still widely told in modern times.  The basic ingredients of the story have unaltered even as the legend has passed through the years.  The ubume legend first appeared in the 12th century kaidan collection called Konjyaku Monogatari, and it is that story I shall relate to you next.

The 17th scroll of the Konjyaku Monogatari is a kaidan scroll, full of ghost legends and monster stories.  This particular story is Number 43 from the 17th scroll; the Tale of the Bravery of Urabe Suetake.

Urabe Suetake was a retainer of that legendary figure Minamoto no Yorimitsu.   More than just a retainer, however, Suetake was one of the Shiten-nō, the Four Guardian Kings whose legend would grow to almost the same size as Yorimitsu’s himself.

One this occasion, Yorimitsu and his retainers had made camp near a river-crossing in the old province of Mino (modern day Gifu prefecture).  As was common at the time, the soldiers whiled away the night telling weird stories around the campfire, until one man mentioned that this very river crossing was supposed to be the home of an ubume.  The legend, it said what that a woman appeared holding a weeping child, and she would plead anyone attempting to ford the river to take the child from her and save its life.   Anyone foolish enough to accept the burden would find that child becoming heavier and heavier in their arms, until they were drug under the water and drowned.

After hearing this story, all of Yorimitsu’s men were far too frightened to cross the river, but Suetake just laughed and said that he didn’t believe in such nonsense.

“I shall cross the river myself.  Right now!” he shouted boldly.

Standing up and preparing to make his way towards the haunted river, he snatched up an arrow and said he would place it on the far bank as testament to his deed.

There were three men in the camp who decided that they would not be satisfied with the evidence of the arrow.  After all, he could just fire it across the river!  So after Suetake had left, the used the cover of the darkness to silently follow him and to bear witness to his deed.

When the arrived, Suetake had indeed crossed the river and placed the arrow, and was now mid-way through his return trip.  Suddenly, from the darkness they heard the voice of a young woman, and the unmistakable cry of a baby.  The woman appeared next to Suetake, and begged him to receive her baby and carry it safely across the river for her.  In spite of the danger, Suetake bravely received the child and started for the shore.  With each step, Suetake’s burden grew heavier, but with his great strength he persevered and it was soon obvious that he would reach his destination.

Behind him, the woman screamed in desperation, begging Suetake to return her child to her, but Suetake refused her cries and continued on until he reached the river shore.  From there, he headed back to camp with the baby still bundled in his arms.

When Suetake arrived in camp, he proudly opened the bundle to show the ubume’s child as evidence of his great deed.  Inside, however, there was no baby. Just a mass of wet leaves bundled together in the rough shape of a human child.

Previous Older Entries Next Newer Entries

Copyright notification

All translations and other writing on this website were created by Zack Davisson and are copyright to him.

Copyright notification

In accessing these web pages, you agree that any downloading of content is for personal, non-commercial reference only.

No part of this web site may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of Zack Davisson.

Copyright notification

For rights clearance please contact Zack at:

zack.davisson (at) gmail.com

Thank you.