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Title: Goblin Poetry Author: Lafcadio Hearn [More Titles by Hearn] Recently, while groping about an old book shop, I found a collection of Goblin Poetry in three volumes, containing many pictures of goblins. The title of the collection is Ky[=o]ka Hyaku-Monogatari, or "The Mad Poetry of the Hyaku-Monogatari." The Hyaku-Monogatari, or "Hundred Tales," is a famous book of ghost stories. On the subject of each of the stories, poems were composed at different times by various persons,--poems of the sort called Ky[=o]ka, or Mad Poetry,--and these were collected and edited to form the three volumes of which I became the fortunate possessor. The collecting was done by a certain Takumi Jingor[=o], who wrote under the literary pseudonym "Temm['e]r R['e][=o]jin" (Ancient of the Temm['e]r Era). Takumi died in the first year of Bunky[=u] (1861), at the good age of eighty; and his collection seems to have been published in the sixth year of Ka['e][:i] (1853). The pictures were made by an artist called Masazumi, who worked under the pseudonym "Ry[=o]sai Kanjin." From a prefatory note it appears that Takumi Jingor[=o] published his collection with the hope of reviving interest in a once popular kind of poetry which had fallen into neglect before the middle of the century. The word ky[=o]ka is written with a Chinese character signifying "insane" or "crazy;" and it means a particular and extraordinary variety of comic poetry. The form is that of the classic tanka of thirty-one syllables (arranged 57577);--but the subjects are always the extreme reverse of classical; and the artistic effects depend upon methods of verbal jugglery which cannot be explained without the help of numerous examples. The collection published by Takumi includes a good deal of matter in which a Western reader can discover no merit; but the best of it has a distinctly grotesque quality that reminds one of Hood's weird cleverness in playing with grim subjects. This quality, and the peculiar Japanese method of mingling the playful with the terrific, can be suggested and explained only by reproducing in Romaji the texts of various ky[=o]ka, with translations and notes. The selection which I have made should prove interesting, not merely because it will introduce the reader to a class of Japanese poetry about which little or nothing has yet been written in English, but much more because it will afford some glimpses of a supernatural world which still remains for the most part unexplored. Without knowledge of Far Eastern superstitions and folk-tales, no real understanding of Japanese fiction or drama or poetry will ever become possible. * * * * * There are many hundreds of poems in the three volumes of the Ky[=o]ka Hyaku-Monogatari; but the number of the ghosts and goblins falls short of the one hundred suggested by the title. There are just ninety-five. I could not expect to interest my readers in the whole of this goblinry, and my selection includes less than one seventh of the subjects. The Faceless Babe, The Long-Tongued Maiden, The Three-Eyed Monk, The Pillow-Mover, The Thousand Heads, The Acolyte-with-the-Lantern, The Stone-that-Cries-in-the-Night, The Goblin-Heron, The Goblin-Wind, The Dragon-Lights, and The Mountain-Nurse, did not much impress me. I omitted ky[=o]ka dealing with fancies too gruesome for Western nerves,--such as that of the Obum['e]dori,--also those treating of merely local tradition. The subjects chosen represent national rather than provincial folklore,--old beliefs (mostly of Chinese origin) once prevalent throughout the country, and often referred to in its popular literature.
The Will-o'-the-wisp is called kitsun['e]-bi ("fox-fire"), because the goblin-fox was formerly supposed to create it. In old Japanese pictures it is represented as a tongue of pale red flame, hovering in darkness, and shedding no radiance upon the surfaces over which it glides. To understand some of the following ky[=o]ka on the subject, the reader should know that certain superstitions about the magical power of the fox have given rise to several queer folk-sayings,--one of which relates to marrying a stranger. Formerly a good citizen was expected to marry within his own community, not outside of it; and the man who dared to ignore traditional custom in this regard would have found it difficult to appease the communal indignation. Even to-day the villager who, after a long absence from his birthplace, returns with a strange bride, is likely to hear unpleasant things said,--such as: "Wakaranai-mono we hippat['e]-kita!... Doko no uma no hon['e] da ka? " ("Goodness knows what kind of a thing he has dragged here after him! Where did he pick up that old horse-bone?") The expression uma no hon['e], "old horse-bone," requires explanation. A goblin-fox has the power to assume many shapes; but, for the purpose of deceiving men, he usually takes the form of a pretty woman. When he wants to create a charming phantom of this kind, he picks up an old horse-bone or cow-bone, and holds it in his mouth. Presently the bone becomes luminous; and the figure of a woman defines about it,--the figure of a courtesan or singing-girl.... So the village query about the man who marries a strange wife, "What old horse-bone has he picked up?" signifies really, "What wanton has bewitched him?" It further implies the suspicion that the stranger may be of outcast blood: a certain class of women of pleasure having been chiefly recruited, from ancient time, among the daughters of ['E]ta and other pariah-people.
[--Ah the wanton (lighting her lantern)!--so a fox-fire is kindled in the time of fox-transformation!... Perhaps she is really nothing more than an old horse-bone from somewhere or other....]
[Footnote 27: The supposed utterance of a belated traveler frightened by a will-o'-the-wisp. The last line allows of two readings. Kokoro-hosoi means "timid;" and hosoi michi (hoso-michi) means a "narrow path," and, by implication, a "lonesome path."]
The term Rikomby[=o] is composed with the word rikon, signifying a "shade," "ghost," or "spectre," and the word by[=o], signifying "sickness," "disease." An almost literal rendering would be "ghost-sickness." In Japanese-English dictionaries you will find the meaning of Rikomby[=o] given as "hypochondria;" and doctors really use the term in this modern sense. But the ancient meaning was a disorder of the mind which produced a Double; and there is a whole strange literature about this weird disease. It used to be supposed, both in China and Japan, that under the influence of intense grief or longing, caused by love, the spirit of the suffering person would create a Double. Thus the victim of Rikomby[=o] would appear to have two bodies, exactly alike; and one of these bodies would go to join the absent beloved, while the other remained at home. (In my "Exotics and Retrospectives," under the title "A Question in the Zen Texts," the reader will find a typical Chinese story on the subject,--the story of the girl Ts'ing.) Some form of the primitive belief in doubles and wraiths probably exists in every part of the world; but this Far Eastern variety is of peculiar interest because the double is supposed to be caused by love, and the subjects of the affliction to belong to the gentler sex.... The term Rikomby[=o] seems to be applied to the apparition as well as to the mental disorder supposed to produce the apparition: it signifies "doppelg[:a]nger" as well as "ghost-disease." * * * * * --With these necessary explanations, the quality of the following ky[=o]ka can be understood. A picture which appears in the Ky[=o]ka Hyaku-Monogatari shows a maid-servant anxious to offer a cup of tea to her mistress,--a victim of the "ghost-sickness." The servant cannot distinguish between the original and the apparitional shapes before her; and the difficulties of the situation are suggested in the first of the ky[=o]ka which I have translated:--
[Footnote 28: The Japanese say of a person greatly emaciated by sickness, miru-kag['e] mo naki: "Even a visible shadow of him is not!"--Another rendering is made possible by the fact that the same expression is used in the sense of "unfit to be seen,"--"though the face of the person afflicted with this ghostly sickness is unfit to be seen, yet by reason of her secret longing [for another man] there are now two of her faces to be seen." The phrase omoi no hoka, in the fourth line, means "contrary to expectation;" but it is ingeniously made to suggest also the idea of secret longing.]
[Footnote 29: There is a curious play on words in the fourth line. The word omot['e], meaning "the front," might, in reading, be sounded as omott['e], "thinking." The verses therefore might also be thus translated:--"She keeps her real thoughts hidden in the back part of the house, and never allows them to be seen in the front part of the house,--because she is suffering from the 'Shadow-Sickness' [of love]."]
[Footnote 30: There is a double meaning, suggested rather than expressed, in the fourth line. The word shiraga, "white-hair," suggests shirazu, "not knowing."]
[Footnote 31: There is in this poem a multiplicity of suggestion impossible to render in translation. While making her toilet, the Japanese woman uses two mirrors (awas['e]-kagami)--one of which, a hand-mirror, serves to show her the appearance of the back part of her coiffure, by reflecting it into the larger stationary mirror. But in this case of Rikomby[=o], the woman sees more than her face and the back of her head in the larger mirror: she sees her own double. The verses indicate that one of the mirrors may have caught the Shadow-Sickness, and doubled itself. And there is a further suggestion of the ghostly sympathy said to exist between a mirror and the soul of its possessor.]
In the old Chinese and Japanese literature the toad is credited with supernatural capacities,--such as the power to call down clouds, the power to make rain, the power to exhale from its mouth a magical mist which creates the most beautiful illusions. Some toads are good spirits,--friends of holy men; and in Japanese art a famous Rishi called "Gama-Sennin" (Toad Rishi) is usually represented with a white toad resting upon his shoulder, or squatting beside him. Some toads are evil goblins, and create phantasms for the purpose of luring men to destruction. A typical story about a creature of this class will be found in my "Kott[=o]," entitled "The Story of Chug[=o]r[=o]."
[Footnote 32: There are two Japanese words, kesh[=o], which in kana are written alike and pronounced alike, though represented by very different Chinese characters. As written in kana, the term kesh[=o]-no-mono may signify either "toilet articles" or "a monstrous being," "a goblin."]
The term Shinkir[=o] is used in the meaning of "mirage," and also as another name for H[=o]rai, the Elf-land of Far Eastern fable. Various beings in Japanese myth are credited with power to delude mortals by creating a mirage of H[=o]rai. In old pictures one may see a toad represented in the act of exhaling from its mouth a vapor that shapes the apparition of H[=o]rai. But the creature especially wont to produce this illusion is the Hamaguri,--a Japanese mollusk much resembling a clam. Opening its shell, it sends into the air a purplish misty breath; and that mist takes form and defines, in tints of mother-of-pearl, the luminous vision of H[=o]rai and the palace of the Dragon-King.
[Footnote 33: Hinagata means especially "a model," "a miniature copy," "a drawn plan," etc.]
The etymological meaning of Rokuro-Kubi can scarcely be indicated by any English rendering. The term rokuro is indifferently used to designate many revolving objects--objects as dissimilar as a pulley, a capstan, a windlass, a turning lathe, and a potter's wheel. Such renderings of Rokuro-Kubi as "Whirling-Neck" and "Rotating-Neck" are unsatisfactory;--for the idea which the term suggests to Japanese fancy is that of a neck which revolves, and lengthens or retracts according to the direction of the revolution.... As for the ghostly meaning of the expression, a Rokuro-Kubi is either (1) a person whose neck lengthens prodigiously during sleep, so that the head can wander about in all directions, seeking what it may devour, or (2) a person able to detach his or her head completely from the body, and to rejoin it to the neck afterwards. (About this last mentioned variety of Rokuro-Kubi there is a curious story in my "Kwaidan," translated from the Japanese.) In Chinese mythology the being whose neck is so constructed as to allow of the head being completely detached belongs to a special class; but in Japanese folk-tale this distinction is not always maintained. One of the bad habits attributed to the Rokuro-Kubi is that of drinking the oil in night-lamps. In Japanese pictures the Rokuro-Kubi is usually depicted as a woman; and old books tell us that a woman might become a Rokuro-Kubi without knowing it,--much as a somnambulist walks about while asleep, without being aware of the fact.... The following verses about the Rokuro-Kubi have been selected from a group of twenty in the Ky[=o]ka Hyaku-Monogatari:--
[Footnote 34: It is not possible to render all the double meanings in this composition. Tsuka-no-ma signifies "in a moment" or "quickly"; but it may also mean "in the space [ma] between the roof-props" [tsuka]. "K['e]ta" means a cross-beam, but k['e]ta-k['e]ta warau means to chuckle or laugh in a mocking way. Ghosts are said to laugh with the sound of k['e]ta-k['e]ta.]
[Footnote 35: The ordinary height of a full screen is six Japanese feet.]
The Snow-Woman, or Snow-Spectre, assumes various forms; but in most of the old folk-tales she appears as a beautiful phantom, whose embrace is death. (A very curious story about her can be found in my "Kwaidan.")
[Footnote 37: The term shirayuki, as here used, offers an example of what Japanese poets call Keny[=o]gen, or "double-purpose words." Joined to the words immediately following, it makes the phrase "white-snow woman" (shirayuki no onna);--united with the words immediately preceding, it suggests the reading, "whither-gone not-knowing" (yuku ['e] wa shira[zu]).]
[Footnote 38: Zotto is a difficult word to render literally: perhaps the nearest English equivalent is "thrilling." Zotto suru signifies "to cause a thrill" or "to give a shock," or "to make shiver;" and of a very beautiful person it is said "Zotto-suru hodo no bijin,"--meaning! "She is so pretty that it gives one a shock merely to look at her." The term yanagi-goshi ("willow-loins") in the last line is a common expression designating a slender and graceful figure; and the reader should observe that the first half of the term is ingeniously made to do double duty here,--suggesting, with the context, not only the grace of willow branches weighed down by snow, but also the grace of a human figure that one must stop to admire, in spite of the cold.]
The spirits of the drowned are said to follow after ships, calling for a bucket or a water-dipper (hishaku). To refuse the bucket or the dipper is dangerous; but the bottom of the utensil should be knocked out before the request is complied with, and the spectres must not be allowed to see this operation performed. If an undamaged bucket or dipper be thrown to the ghosts, it will be used to fill and to sink the ship. These phantoms are commonly called Funa-Y[=u]r['e][:i] ("Ship-Ghosts"). The spirits of those warriors of the H['e][:i]k['e] clan who perished in the great sea-fight at Dan-no-ura, in the year 1185, are famous among Funa-Y[=u]r['e][:i]. Ta[:i]ra no Tomomori, one of the chiefs of the clan, is celebrated in this weird r[^o]le: old pictures represent him, followed by the ghosts of his warriors, running over the waves to attack passing ships. Once he menaced a vessel in which Benk['e][:i], the celebrated retainer of Yoshitsun['e], was voyaging; and Benk['e][:i] was able to save the ship only by means of his Buddhist rosary, which frightened the spectres away.... Tomomori is frequently pictured as walking upon the sea, carrying a ship's anchor on his back. He and his fellow-ghosts are said to have been in the habit of uprooting and making off with the anchors of vessels imprudently moored in their particular domain,--the neighborhood of Shimonos['e]ki.
[Footnote 39: Hishaku, a wooden dipper with a long handle, used to transfer water from a bucket to smaller vessels.]
[Footnote 40: The common expression Koshi ga nuk['e]ru (to have one's loins taken out) means to be unable to stand up by reason of fear. The suggestion is that while the captain was trying to knock out the bottom of a dipper, before giving it to the ghost, he fell senseless from fright.]
[Footnote 41: The Underworld of the Dead--Yomi or K[=o]sen--is called "The Yellow Springs;" these names being written with two Chinese characters respectively signifying "yellow" and "fountain." A very ancient term for the ocean, frequently used in the old Shint[=o] rituals, is "The Blue Sea-Plain."]
[Footnote 42: There is an untranslatable play upon words in the last two lines. The above rendering includes two possible readings.]
[Footnote 43: There is more weirdness in this poem than the above rendering suggests. The word ukaman in the fourth line can be rendered as "shall perhaps float," or as "shall perhaps be saved" (in the Buddhist sense of salvation),--as there are two verbs ukami. According to an old superstition, the spirits of the drowned must continue to dwell in the waters until such time as they can lure the living to destruction. When the ghost of any drowned person succeeds in drowning somebody, it may be able to obtain rebirth, and to leave the sea forever. The exclamation of the ghost in this poem really means, "Now perhaps I shall be able to drown somebody." (A very similar superstition is said to exist on the Breton coast.) A common Japanese saying about a child or any person who follows another too closely and persistently is: Kawa de shinda-y[=u]r['e][:i] no yona tsur['e]-hoshigaru!--"Wants to follow you everywhere like the ghost of a drowned person."]
[Footnote 44: Here I cannot attempt to render the various plays upon words; but the term "omo[:i]" needs explanation. It means "thought" or "thoughts;" but in colloquial phraseology it is often used as a euphemism for a dying person's last desire of vengeance. In various dramas it has been used in the signification of "avenging ghost." Thus the exclamation, "His thought has come back!"--in reference to a dead man--really means: "His angry ghost appears!"]
[Footnote 45: There is a double meaning given by the use of the name Tomomori in the last line. Tomo means "the stern" of a ship; mori means "to leak." So the poem suggests that the ghost of Tomomori not only interferes with the ship's rudder, but causes her to leak.]
[Footnote 46: Namakusaki-kaze really means a wind having a "raw stench;" but the smell of bait is suggested by the second line of the poem. A literal rendering is not possible in this case; the art of the composition being altogether suggestive.]
Readers can find in my "Kott[=o]" a paper about the H['e][:i]k['e]-Crabs, which have on their upper shells various wrinklings that resemble the outlines of an angry face. At Shimono-s['e]ki dried specimens of these curious creatures are offered for sale.... The H['e][:i]k['e]-Crabs are said to be the transformed angry spirits of the H['e][:i]k['e] warriors who perished at Dan-no-ura.
[Footnote 47: Hi, the third syllable of the first line of the poem, does duty for hi, signifying "ebb," and for hikata, "dry beach." S['e][:i]zoro[:e] is a noun signifying "battle-array"--in the sense of the Roman term acies;--and s['e][:i]zoro['e] shit['e] means "drawn up in battle-array."]
[Footnote 48: The ensign of the H['e][:i]k['e], or Ta[:i]ra clan was red; while that of their rivals, the Genji or Minamot[=o], was white.]
[Footnote 49: The use of the word hasami in the fifth line is a very good example of keny[=o]gen. There is a noun hasami, meaning the nippers of a crab, or a pair of scissors; and there is a verb hasami, meaning to harbor, to cherish, or to entertain. (Ikon wo hasamu means "to harbor resentment against.") Reading the word only in connection with those which follow it, we have the phrase hasami mochik['e]ri, "got claws;" but, reading it with the words preceding, we have the expression ikon wo mun['e] ni hasami, "resentment in their breasts nourishing."]
Modern dictionaries ignore the uncanny significations of the word Yanari,--only telling us that it means the sound of the shaking of a house during an earthquake. But the word used to mean the noise of the shaking of a house moved by a goblin; and the invisible shaker was also called Yanari. When, without apparent cause, some house would shudder and creak and groan in the night, folk used to suppose that it was being shaken from without by supernatural malevolence.
[Footnote 50: The tokonoma in a Japanese room is a sort of ornamental recess or alcove, in which a picture is usually hung, and vases of flowers, or a dwarf tree, are placed.]
The term Sakasa-bashira (in these ky[=o]ka often shortened into saka-bashira) literally means "upside-down post." A wooden post or pillar, especially a house-post, should be set up according to the original position of the tree from which it was hewn,--that is to say, with the part nearest to the roots downward. To erect a house-post in the contrary way is thought to be unlucky;--formerly such a blunder was believed to involve unpleasant consequences of a ghostly kind, because an "upside-down" pillar would do malignant things. It would moan and groan in the night, and move all its cracks like mouths, and open all its knots like eyes. Moreover, the spirit of it (for every house-post has a spirit) would detach its long body from the timber, and wander about the rooms, head-downwards, making faces at people. Nor was this all. A Sakasa-bashira knew how to make all the affairs of a household go wrong,--how to foment domestic quarrels,--how to contrive misfortune for each of the family and the servants,--how to render existence almost insupportable until such time as the carpenter's blunder should be discovered and remedied.
[Who set the house-pillar upside-down? Surely that must have been the work of a man with a knot in his heart.]
[Footnote 51: The word takumi, as written in kana, may signify either "carpenter" or "intrigue," "evil plot," "wicked device." Thus two readings are possible. According to one reading, the post was fixed upside-down through inadvertence; according to the other, it was so fixed with malice prepense.]
[Footnote 52: Lit., "upside-down-matter-sorrow." Sakasama-goto, "up-side-down affair," is a common expression for calamity, contrariety, adversity, vexation.]
[Footnote 53: Alluding to the proverb, Kab['e] ni mimi ari ("There are ears in the wall"), which signifies: "Be careful how you talk about other people, even in private."]
[Footnote 54: There is a pun in the fourth line which suggests more than even a free translation can express. War['e] means "I," or "mine," or "one's own," etc., according to circumstances; and war['e] m['e] (written separately) might be rendered "its own eyes." But war['e]m['e] (one word) means a crack, rent, split, or fissure. The reader should remember that the term saka-bashira means not only "upside-down post," but also the goblin or spectre of the upside-down post.]
[Footnote 55: That is to say, "Even the poem on the tablet is up-side-down,"--all wrong. Hashira-kak['e] ("pillar-suspended thing") is the name given to a thin tablet of fine wood, inscribed or painted, which is hung to a post by way of ornament.]
The figure of the Bodhi-sattva Jiz[:o], the savior of children's ghosts, is one of the most beautiful and humane in Japanese Buddhism. Statues of this divinity may be seen in almost every village and by every roadside. But some statues of Jiz[:o] are said to do uncanny things--such as to walk about at night in various disguises. A statue of this kind is called a Bak['e]-Jiz[=o][56],--meaning a Jiz[=o]; that undergoes transformation. A conventional picture shows a little boy about to place the customary child's-offering of rice-cakes before the stone image of Jiz[=o],--not suspecting that the statue moves, and is slowly bending down towards him. [Footnote 56: Perhaps the term might be rendered "Shape-changing Jiz[=o]." The verb bak['e]ru means to change shape, to undergo metamorphosis, to haunt, and many other supernatural things.]
[Footnote 57: The Japanese word for granite is mikag['e]; and there is also an honorific term mikag['e], applied to divinities and emperors, which signifies "august aspect," "sacred presence," etc.... No literal rendering can suggest the effect, in the fifth line, of the latter reading. Kag['e] signifies "shadow," "aspect," and "power"--especially occult power; the honorific prefix mi, attached to names and attributes of divinities, may be rendered "august."]
Place a large cuttlefish on a table, body upwards and tentacles downwards--and you will have before you the grotesque reality that first suggested the fancy of the Umi-B[=o]zu, or Priest of the Sea. For the great bald body in this position, with the staring eyes below, bears a distorted resemblance to the shaven head of a priest; while the crawling tentacles underneath (which are in some species united by a dark web) suggests the wavering motion of the priest's upper robe.... The Umi-B[=o]zu figures a good deal in the literature of Japanese goblinry, and in the old-fashioned picture-books. He rises from the deep in foul weather to seize his prey.
[Footnote 58: The puns are too much for me.... Ayashii means "suspicious," "marvelous," "supernatural," "weird," "doubtful."--In the first two lines there is a reference to the Buddhist proverb: Funa-ita ichi-mai shita wa Jigoku ("under the thickness of a single ship's-plank is Hell"). (See my Gleanings in Buddha-Fields, p. 206, for another reference to this saying.)]
Homes are protected from evil spirits by holy texts and charms. In any Japanese village, or any city by-street, you can see these texts when the sliding-doors are closed at night: they are not visible by day, when the sliding-doors have been pushed back into the tobukuro. Such texts are called o-fuda (august scripts): they are written in Chinese characters upon strips of white paper, which are attached to the door with rice-paste; and there are many kinds of them. Some are texts selected from sutras--such as the S[^u]tra of Transcendent Wisdom (Prag[~n]a-P[^a]ramit[^a]-Hridaya-S[^u]tra), or the S[^u]tra of the Lotos of the Good Law (Saddharma-Pundarik[^a]-S[^u]tra). Some are texts from the dh[^a]ran[^i]s,--which are magical. Some are invocations only, indicating the Buddhist sect of the household.... Besides these you may see various smaller texts, or little prints, pasted above or beside windows or apertures,--some being names of Shinto gods; others, symbolical pictures only, or pictures of Buddhas and Bodhi-sattvas. All are holy charms,--o-fuda: they protect the houses; and no goblin or ghost can enter by night into a dwelling so protected, unless the o-fuda be removed. [Footnote 59: H['e]gashi is the causative form of the verb h['e]gu, "to pull off," "peel off," "strip off," "split off." The term Fuda-h['e]gashi signifies "Make-peel-off-august-charm Ghost." In my Ghostly Japan the reader can find a good Japanese story about a Fuda-h['e]gashi.] Vengeful ghosts cannot themselves remove an o-fuda; but they will endeavor by threats or promises or bribes to make some person remove it for them. A ghost that wants to have the o-fuda pulled off a door is called a Fuda-h['e]gashi.
[Footnote 60: The fourth line gives these two readings:-- Nam'mai da? --"How many sheets are there?" Nam[u] A[m]ida!--"Hail, O Amit[^a]bha!" The invocation, Namu Amida Butsu, is chiefly used by members of the great Shin sect; but it is also used by other sects, and especially in praying for the dead. While repeating it, the person praying numbers the utterances upon his Buddhist rosary; and this custom is suggested by the use of the word kazo[:e]t['e], "counting."]
The old Japanese, like the old Greeks, had their flower-spirits and their hamadryads, concerning whom some charming stories are told. They also believed in trees inhabited by malevolent beings,--goblin trees. Among other weird trees, the beautiful tsubaki (Camellia Japonica) was said to be an unlucky tree;--this was said, at least, of the red-flowering variety, the white-flowering kind having a better reputation and being prized as a rarity. The large fleshy crimson flowers have this curious habit: they detach themselves bodily from the stem, when they begin to fade; and they fall with an audible thud. To old Japanese fancy the falling of these heavy red flowers was like the falling of human heads under the sword; and the dull sound of their dropping was said to be like the thud made by a severed head striking the ground. Nevertheless the tsubaki seems to have been a favorite in Japanese gardens because of the beauty of its glossy foliage; and its flowers were used for the decoration of alcoves. But in samurai homes it was a rule never to place tsubaki-flowers in an alcove during war-time. The reader will notice that in the following ky[=o]ka--which, as grotesques, seem to me the best in the collection--the goblin-tsubaki is called furu-tsubaki, "old tsubaki." The young tree was not supposed to have goblin-propensities,--these being developed only after many years. Other uncanny trees--such as the willow and the ['e]noki--were likewise said to become dangerous only as they became old; and a similar belief prevailed on the subject of uncanny animals, such as the cat--innocent in kittenhood, but devilish in age.
[Footnote 61: The word furu in the third line is made to do double duty,--as the adjective, furu[i], "ancient"; and as the verb furu, "to shake." The old term nama-kuhi (lit., "raw head") means a human head, freshly-severed, from which the blood is still oozing.]
[Footnote 62: Two Japanese words are written, in kana, as "m['e]"--one meaning "a bud;" the other "eye." The syllables "hana" in like fashion, may signify either "flower" or "nose." As a grotesque, this little poem is decidedly successful.]
[Footnote 63: Ayashig['e] is a noun formed from the adjective ayashi, "suspicious," "strange," "supernatural," "doubtful." The word kag['e] signifies both "light" and "shadow,"--and is here used with double suggestiveness. The vegetable oil used in the old Japanese lamps used to be obtained from the nuts of the tsubaki. The reader should remember that the expression "ancient tsubaki" is equivalent to the expression "goblin-tsubaki,"--the tsubaki being supposed to turn into a goblin-tree only when it becomes old.] * * * * * --Nearly all the stories and folk-beliefs about which these ky[=o]ka were written seem to have come from China; and most of the Japanese tales of tree-spirits appear to have had a Chinese origin. As the flower-spirits and hamadryads of the Far East are as yet little known to Western readers, the following Chinese story may be found interesting. * * * * * There was a Chinese scholar--called, in Japanese books, T[=o] no Busanshi--who was famous for his love of flowers. He was particularly fond of peonies, and cultivated them with great skill and patience.[64] [Footnote 64: The tree-peony (botan) is here referred to,--a flower much esteemed in Japan. It is said to have been introduced from China during the eighth century; and no less than five hundred varieties of it are now cultivated by Japanese gardeners.] One day a very comely girl came to the house of Busanshi, and begged to be taken into his service. She said that circumstances obliged her to seek humble employment, but that she had received a literary education, and therefore wished to enter, if possible, into the service of a scholar. Busanshi was charmed by her beauty, and took her into his household without further questioning. She proved to be much more than a good domestic: indeed, the nature of her accomplishments made Busanshi suspect that she had been brought up in the court of some prince, or in the palace of some great lord. She displayed a perfect knowledge of the etiquette and the polite arts which are taught only to ladies of the highest rank; and she possessed astonishing skill in calligraphy, in painting, and in every kind of poetical composition. Busanshi presently fell in love with her, and thought only of how to please her. When scholar-friends or other visitors of importance came to the house, he would send for the new maid that she might entertain and wait upon his guests; and all who saw her were amazed by her grace and charm. One day Busanshi received a visit from the great Teki-Shin-Ketsu, a famous teacher of moral doctrine; and the maid did not respond to her master's call. Busanshi went himself to seek her, being desirous that Teki-Shin-Ketsu should see her and admire her; but she was nowhere to be found. After having searched the whole house in vain, Busanshi was returning to the guest-room when he suddenly caught sight of the maid, gliding soundlessly before him along a corridor. He called to her, and hurried after her. Then she turned half-round, and flattened herself against the wall like a spider; and as he reached her she sank backwards into the wall, so that there remained of her nothing visible but a colored shadow,--level like a picture painted on the plaster. But the shadow moved its lips and eyes, and spoke to him in a whisper, saying:-- "Pardon me that I did not obey your august call!... I am not a mankind-person;--I am only the Soul of a Peony. Because you loved peonies so much, I was able to take human shape, and to serve you. But now this Teki-Shin-Ketsu has come,--and he is a person of dreadful propriety,--and I dare not keep this form any longer.... I must return to the place from which I came." Then she sank back into the wall, and vanished altogether: there was nothing where she had been except the naked plaster. And Busanshi never saw her again. This story is written in a Chinese book which the Japanese call "Kai-ten-i-ji." [The end] GO TO TOP OF SCREEN |