Lafcadio Hearn .........................................................................................................................................1

The publication of a new volume of Lafcadio Hearn's exquisite studies of Japan happens, by a delicate irony,

to fall in the very month when the world is waiting with tense expectation for news of the latest exploits of

Japanese battleships. Whatever the outcome of the present struggle between Russia and Japan, its

significance lies in the fact that a nation of the East, equipped with Western weapons and girding itself with

Western energy of will, is deliberately measuring strength against one of the great powers of the Occident.

No one is wise enough to forecast the results of such a conflict upon the civilization of the world. The best

one can do is to estimate, as intelligently as possible, the national characteristics of the peoples engaged,

basing one's hopes and fears upon the psychology of the two races rather than upon purely political and

statistical studies of the complicated questions involved in the present war. The Russian people have had

literary spokesmen who for more than a generation have fascinated the European audience. The Japanese, on

the other hand, have possessed no such national and universally recognized figures as Turgenieff or Tolstoy.

It may be doubted whether any oriental race has ever had an interpreter gifted with more perfect insight and

sympathy than Lafcadio Hearn has brought to the translation of Japan into our occidental speech. His long

residence in that country, his flexibility of mind, poetic imagination, and wonderfully pellucid style have

fitted him for the most delicate of literary tasks. Hi has seen marvels, and he has told of them in a marvelous

way. There is scarcely an aspect of contemporary Japanese life, scarcely an element in the social, political,

and military questions involved in the present conflict with Russia which is not made clear in one or another

He characterizes Kwaidan as "stories and studies of strange things." A hundred thoughts suggested by the

book might be written down, but most of them would begin and end with this fact of strangeness. To read the

very names in the table of contents is like listening to a Buddhist bell, struck somewhere far away. Some of

his tales are of the long ago, and yet they seem to illumine the very souls and minds of the little men who are

at this hour crowding the decks of Japan's armored cruisers. But many of the stories are about women and

children, the lovely materials from which the best fairy tales of the world have been woven. They too are

strange, these Japanese maidens and wives and keeneyed, darkhaired girls and boys; they are like us and

yet not like us; and the sky and the hills and the flowers are all different from our. Yet by a magic of which

Mr. Hearn, almost alone among contemporary writers, is the master, in these delicate, transparent, ghostly

sketches of a world unreal to us, there is a haunting sense of spiritual reality.

In a penetrating and beautiful essay contributed to the "Atlantic Monthly" in February, 1903, by Paul Elmer

More, the secret of Mr. Hearn's magic is said to lie in the fact that in his art is found "the meeting of three

ways." "To the religious instinct of India Buddhism in particular, which history has engrafted on the

aesthetic sense of Japan, Mr. Hearn brings the interpreting spirit of occidental science; and these three

traditions are fused by the peculiar sympathies of his mind into one rich and novel compound, a compound

so rare as to have introduced into literature a psychological sensation unknown before." Mr. More's essay

received the high praise of Mr. Hearn's recognition and gratitude, and if it were possible to reprint it here, it

would provide a most suggestive introduction to these new stories of old Japan, whose substance is, as Mr.

More has said, "so strangely mingled together out of the austere dreams of India and the subtle beauty of

Most of the following Kwaidan, or Weird Tales, have been taken from old Japanese books, such as the

YasoKidan, BukkyoHyakkwaZensho, KokonChomonshu, TamaSudare, and HyakuMonogatari.

Some of the stories may have had a Chinese origin: the very remarkable "Dream of Akinosuke," for example,

is certainly from a Chinese source. But the storyteller, in every case, has so recolored and reshaped his

borrowing as to naturalize it... One queer tale, "YukiOnna," was told me by a farmer of Chofu,

Nishitamagori, in Musashi province, as a legend of his native village. Whether it has ever been written in

Japanese I do not know; but the extraordinary belief which it records used certainly to exist in most parts of

Japan, and in many curious forms... The incident of "RikiBaka" was a personal experience; and I wrote it

down almost exactly as it happened, changing only a familyname mentioned by the Japanese narrator.

More than seven hundred years ago, at Dannoura, in the Straits of Shimonoseki, was fought the last battle

of the long contest between the Heike, or Taira clan, and the Genji, or Minamoto clan. There the Heike

perished utterly, with their women and children, and their infant emperor likewise now remembered as

Antoku Tenno. And that sea and shore have been haunted for seven hundred years... Elsewhere I told you

about the strange crabs found there, called Heike crabs, which have human faces on their backs, and are said

to be the spirits of the Heike warriors [1]. But there are many strange things to be seen and heard along that

coast. On dark nights thousands of ghostly fires hover about the beach, or flit above the waves, pale lights

which the fishermen call Onibi, or demonfires; and, whenever the winds are up, a sound of great shouting

In former years the Heike were much more restless than they now are. They would rise about ships passing in

the night, and try to sink them; and at all times they would watch for swimmers, to pull them down. It was in

order to appease those dead that the Buddhist temple, Amidaji, was built at Akamagaseki [2]. A cemetery

also was made close by, near the beach; and within it were set up monuments inscribed with the names of the

drowned emperor and of his great vassals; and Buddhist services were regularly performed there, on behalf of

the spirits of them. After the temple had been built, and the tombs erected, the Heike gave less trouble than

before; but they continued to do queer things at intervals, proving that they had not found the perfect

Some centuries ago there lived at Akamagaseki a blind man named Hoichi, who was famed for his skill in

recitation and in playing upon the biwa [3]. >From childhood he had been trained to recite and to play; and

while yet a lad he had surpassed his teachers. As a professional biwahoshi he became famous chiefly by his

recitations of the history of the Heike and the Genji; and it is said that when he sang the song of the battle of

At the outset of his career, Hoichi was very poor; but he found a good friend to help him. The priest of the

Amidaji was fond of poetry and music; and he often invited Hoichi to the temple, to play and recite.

Afterwards, being much impressed by the wonderful skill of the lad, the priest proposed that Hoichi should

make the temple his home; and this offer was gratefully accepted. Hoichi was given a room in the

templebuilding; and, in return for food and lodging, he was required only to gratify the priest with a musical

One summer night the priest was called away, to perform a Buddhist service at the house of a dead

parishioner; and he went there with his acolyte, leaving Hoichi alone in the temple. It was a hot night; and the

blind man sought to cool himself on the verandah before his sleepingroom. The verandah overlooked a

small garden in the rear of the Amidaji. There Hoichi waited for the priest's return, and tried to relieve his

solitude by practicing upon his biwa. Midnight passed; and the priest did not appear. But the atmosphere was

still too warm for comfort within doors; and Hoichi remained outside. At last he heard steps approaching

from the back gate. Somebody crossed the garden, advanced to the verandah, and halted directly in front of

him but it was not the priest. A deep voice called the blind man's name abruptly and unceremoniously,

"Hai!" (1) answered the blind man, frightened by the menace in the voice, "I am blind! I cannot know

"There is nothing to fear," the stranger exclaimed, speaking more gently. "I am stopping near this temple, and

have been sent to you with a message. My present lord, a person of exceedingly high rank, is now staying in

Akamagaseki, with many noble attendants. He wished to view the scene of the battle of Dannoura; and

today he visited that place. Having heard of your skill in reciting the story of the battle, he now desires to

hear your performance: so you will take your biwa and come with me at once to the house where the august

In those times, the order of a samurai was not to be lightly disobeyed. Hoichi donned his sandals, took his

biwa, and went away with the stranger, who guided him deftly, but obliged him to walk very fast. The hand

that guided was iron; and the clank of the warrior's stride proved him fully armed, probably some

palaceguard on duty. Hoichi's first alarm was over: he began to imagine himself in good luck; for,

remembering the retainer's assurance about a "person of exceedingly high rank," he thought that the lord who

wished to hear the recitation could not be less than a daimyo of the first class. Presently the samurai halted;

and Hoichi became aware that they had arrived at a large gateway; and he wondered, for he could not

remember any large gate in that part of the town, except the main gate of the Amidaji. "Kaimon!" [4] the

samurai called, and there was a sound of unbarring; and the twain passed on. They traversed a space of

garden, and halted again before some entrance; and the retainer cried in a loud voice, "Within there! I have

brought Hoichi." Then came sounds of feet hurrying, and screens sliding, and raindoors opening, and voices

of womeni n converse. By the language of the women Hoichi knew them to be domestics in some noble

household; but he could not imagine to what place he had been conducted. Little time was allowed him for

conjecture. After he had been helped to mount several stone steps, upon the last of which he was told to leave

his sandals, a woman's hand guided him along interminable reaches of polished planking, and round pillared

angles too many to remember, and over widths amazing of matted floor, into the middle of some vast

apartment. There he thought that many great people were assembled: the sound of the rustling of silk was like

the sound of leaves in a forest. He heard also a great humming of voices, talking in undertones; and the

Hoichi was told to put himself at ease, and he found a kneelingcushion ready for him. After having taken his

place upon it, and tuned his instrument, the voice of a woman whom he divined to be the Rojo, or matron

"It is now required that the history of the Heike be recited, to the accompaniment of the biwa."

Now the entire recital would have required a time of many nights: therefore Hoichi ventured a question:

"As the whole of the story is not soon told, what portion is it augustly desired that I now recite?"

"Recite the story of the battle at Dannoura, for the pity of it is the most deep." [5]

Then Hoichi lifted up his voice, and chanted the chant of the fight on the bitter sea, wonderfully making

his biwa to sound like the straining of oars and the rushing of ships, the whirr and the hissing of arrows, the

shouting and trampling of men, the crashing of steel upon helmets, the plunging of slain in the flood. And to

left and right of him, in the pauses of his playing, he could hear voices murmuring praise: "How marvelous

an artist!" "Never in our own province was playing heard like this!" "Not in all the empire is there

another singer like Hoichi!" Then fresh courage came to him, and he played and sang yet better than before;

and a hush of wonder deepened about him. But when at last he came to tell the fate of the fair and helpless,

the piteous perishing of the women and children, and the deathleap of NiinoAma, with the imperial

infant in her arms, then all the listeners uttered together one long, long shuddering cry of anguish; and

thereafter they wept and wailed so loudly and so wildly that the blind man was frightened by the violence and

grief that he had made. For much time the sobbing and the wailing continued. But gradually the sounds of

lamentation died away; and again, in the great stillness that followed, Hoichi heard the voice of the woman

"Although we had been assured that you were a very skillful player upon the biwa, and without an equal in

recitative, we did not know that any one could be so skillful as you have proved yourself tonight. Our lord

has been pleased to say that he intends to bestow upon you a fitting reward. But he desires that you shall

perform before him once every night for the next six nights after which time he will probably make his

august returnjourney. Tomorrow night, therefore, you are to come here at the same hour. The retainer who

tonight conducted you will be sent for you... There is another matter about which I have been ordered to

inform you. It is required that you shall speak to no one of your visits here, during the time of our lord's

august sojourn at Akamagaseki. As he is traveling incognito, [6] he commands that no mention of these

After Hoichi had duly expressed his thanks, a woman's hand conducted him to the entrance of the house,

where the same retainer, who had before guided him, was waiting to take him home. The retainer led him to

It was almost dawn when Hoichi returned; but his absence from the temple had not been observed, as the

priest, coming back at a very late hour, had supposed him asleep. During the day Hoichi was able to take

some rest; and he said nothing about his strange adventure. In the middle of the following night the samurai

again came for him, and led him to the august assembly, where he gave another recitation with the same

success that had attended his previous performance. But during this second visit his absence from the temple

was accidentally discovered; and after his return in the morning he was summoned to the presence of the

"We have been very anxious about you, friend Hoichi. To go out, blind and alone, at so late an hour, is

dangerous. Why did you go without telling us? I could have ordered a servant to accompany you. And where

"Pardon me kind friend! I had to attend to some private business; and I could not arrange the matter at any

The priest was surprised, rather than pained, by Hoichi's reticence: he felt it to be unnatural, and suspected

something wrong. He feared that the blind lad had been bewitched or deluded by some evil spirits. He did not

ask any more questions; but he privately instructed the menservants of the temple to keep watch upon

Hoichi's movements, and to follow him in case that he should again leave the temple after dark.

On the very next night, Hoichi was seen to leave the temple; and the servants immediately lighted their

lanterns, and followed after him. But it was a rainy night, and very dark; and before the templefolks could

get to the roadway, Hoichi had disappeared. Evidently he had walked very fast, a strange thing,

considering his blindness; for the road was in a bad condition. The men hurried through the streets, making

inquiries at every house which Hoichi was accustomed to visit; but nobody could give them any news of him.

At last, as they were returning to the temple by way of the shore, they were startled by the sound of a biwa,

furiously played, in the cemetery of the Amidaji. Except for some ghostly fires such as usually flitted

there on dark nights all was blackness in that direction. But the men at once hastened to the cemetery; and

there, by the help of their lanterns, they discovered Hoichi, sitting alone in the rain before the memorial

tomb of Antoku Tenno, making his biwa resound, and loudly chanting the chant of the battle of Dannoura.

And behind him, and about him, and everywhere above the tombs, the fires of the dead were burning, like

candles. Never before had so great a host of Onibi appeared in the sight of mortal man...

"Hoichi San! Hoichi San!" the servants cried, "you are bewitched!... Hoichi San!"

But the blind man did not seem to hear. Strenuously he made his biwa to rattle and ring and clang; more

and more wildly he chanted the chant of the battle of Dannoura. They caught hold of him; they shouted

"To interrupt me in such a manner, before this august assembly, will not be tolerated."

Whereat, in spite of the weirdness of the thing, the servants could not help laughing. Sure that he had been

bewitched, they now seized him, and pulled him up on his feet, and by main force hurried him back to the

temple, where he was immediately relieved of his wet clothes, by order of the priest. Then the priest

Hoichi long hesitated to speak. But at last, finding that his conduct had really alarmed and angered the good

priest, he decided to abandon his reserve; and he related everything that had happened from the time of first

"Hoichi, my poor friend, you are now in great danger! How unfortunate that you did not tell me all this

before! Your wonderful skill in music has indeed brought you into strange trouble. By this time you must be

aware that you have not been visiting any house whatever, but have been passing your nights in the cemetery,

among the tombs of the Heike; and it was before the memorialtomb of Antoku Tenno that our people

tonight found you, sitting in the rain. All that you have been imagining was illusion except the calling of

the dead. By once obeying them, you have put yourself in their power. If you obey them again, after what has

already occurred, they will tear you in pieces. But they would have destroyed you, sooner or later, in any

event... Now I shall not be able to remain with you tonight: I am called away to perform another service.

But, before I go, it will be necessary to protect your body by writing holy texts upon it."

Before sundown the priest and his acolyte stripped Hoichi: then, with their writingbrushes, they traced upon

his breast and back, head and face and neck, limbs and hands and feet, even upon the soles of his feet, and

upon all parts of his body, the text of the holy sutra called HannyaShinKyo. [7] When this had been

"Tonight, as soon as I go away, you must seat yourself on the verandah, and wait. You will be called. But,

whatever may happen, do not answer, and do not move. Say nothing and sit still as if meditating. If you

stir, or make any noise, you will be torn asunder. Do not get frightened; and do not think of calling for help

because no help could save you. If you do exactly as I tell you, the danger will pass, and you will have

After dark the priest and the acolyte went away; and Hoichi seated himself on the verandah, according to the

instructions given him. He laid his biwa on the planking beside him, and, assuming the attitude of meditation,

remained quite still, taking care not to cough, or to breathe audibly. For hours he stayed thus.

Then, from the roadway, he heard the steps coming. They passed the gate, crossed the garden, approached the

"Hoichi!" the deep voice called. But the blind man held his breath, and sat motionless.

There was a noise of heavy feet mounting upon the verandah. The feet approached deliberately, halted

beside him. Then, for long minutes, during which Hoichi felt his whole body shake to the beating of his

"Here is the biwa; but of the biwaplayer I see only two ears!... So that explains why he did not answer:

he had no mouth to answer with there is nothing left of him but his ears... Now to my lord those ears I will

take in proof that the august commands have been obeyed, so far as was possible"...

At that instant Hoichi felt his ears gripped by fingers of iron, and torn off! Great as the pain was, he gave no

cry. The heavy footfalls receded along the verandah, descended into the garden, passed out to the

roadway, ceased. From either side of his head, the blind man felt a thick warm trickling; but he dared not

Before sunrise the priest came back. He hastened at once to the verandah in the rear, stepped and slipped

upon something clammy, and uttered a cry of horror; for he say, by the light of his lantern, that the

clamminess was blood. But he perceived Hoichi sitting there, in the attitude of meditation with the blood

"My poor Hoichi!" cried the startled priest, "what is this?... You have been hurt?

At the sound of his friend's voice, the blind man felt safe. He burst out sobbing, and tearfully told his

"Poor, poor Hoichi!" the priest exclaimed, "all my fault! my very grievous fault!... Everywhere upon

your body the holy texts had been written except upon your ears! I trusted my acolyte to do that part of the

work; and it was very, very wrong of me not to have made sure that he had done it!... Well, the matter cannot

now be helped; we can only try to heal your hurts as soon as possible... Cheer up, friend! the danger is

With the aid of a good doctor, Hoichi soon recovered from his injuries. The story of his strange adventure

spread far and wide, and soon made him famous. Many noble persons went to Akamagaseki to hear him

recite; and large presents of money were given to him, so that he became a wealthy man... But from the

time of his adventure, he was known only by the appellation of MiminashiHoichi: "HoichitheEarless."

There was a falconer and hunter, named Sonjo, who lived in the district called TamuranoGo, of the

province of Mutsu. One day he went out hunting, and could not find any game. But on his way home, at a

place called Akanuma, he perceived a pair of oshidori [1] (mandarinducks), swimming together in a river

that he was about to cross. to kill oshidori is not good; but Sonjo happened to be very hungry, and he shot at

the pair. His arrow pierced the male: the female escaped into the rushes of the further shore, and disappeared.

That night he dreamed a dreary dream. It seemed to him that a beautiful woman came into his room, and

stood by his pillow, and began to weep. So bitterly did she weep that Sonjo felt as if his heart were being torn

out while he listened. And the woman cried to him: "Why, oh! why did you kill him? of what wrong

was he guilty?... At Akanuma we were so happy together, and you killed him!... What harm did he ever do

you? Do you even know what you have done? oh! do you know what a cruel, what a wicked thing you

have done?... Me too you have killed, for I will not live without my husband!... Only to tell you this I

came."... Then again she wept aloud, so bitterly that the voice of her crying pierced into the marrow of the

("At the coming of twilight I invited him to return with me ! Now to sleep alone in the shadow of the

And after having uttered these verses she exclaimed: "Ah, you do not know you cannot know what you

have done! But tomorrow, when you go to Akanuma, you will see, you will see..." So saying, and

When Sonjo awoke in the morning, this dream remained so vivid in his mind that he was greatly troubled. He

remembered the words: "But tomorrow, when you go to Akanuma, you will see, you will see." And he

resolved to go there at once, that he might learn whether his dream was anything more than a dream.

So he went to Akanuma; and there, when he came to the riverbank, he saw the female oshidori swimming

alone. In the same moment the bird perceived Sonjo; but, instead of trying to escape, she swam straight

towards him, looking at him the while in a strange fixed way. Then, with her beak, she suddenly tore open

A long time ago, in the town of Niigata, in the province of Echizen, there lived a man called Nagao Chosei.

Nagao was the son of a physician, and was educated for his father's profession. At an early age he had been

betrothed to a girl called OTei, the daughter of one of his father's friends; and both families had agreed that

the wedding should take place as soon as Nagao had finished his studies. But the health of OTei proved to

be weak; and in her fifteenth year she was attacked by a fatal consumption. When she became aware that she

"NagaoSama, (1) my betrothed, we were promised to each other from the time of our childhood; and we

were to have been married at the end of this year. But now I am goingto die; the gods know what is best

for us. If I were able to live for some years longer, I could only continue to be a cause of trouble and grief for

others. With this frail body, I could not be a good wife; and therefore even to wish to live, for your sake,

would be a very selfish wish. I am quite resigned to die; and I want you to promise that you will not grieve...

"Indeed we shall meet again," Nagao answered earnestly. "And in that Pure Land (2) there will be no pain of

"Nay, nay!" she responded softly, "I meant not the Pure Land. I believe that we are destined to meet again in

Nagao looked at her wonderingly, and saw her smile at his wonder. She continued, in her gentle, dreamy

"Yes, I mean in this world, in your own present life, NagaoSama... Providing, indeed, that you wish it.

Only, for this thing to happen, I must again be born a girl, and grow up to womanhood. So you would have to

wait. Fifteen sixteen years: that is a long time... But, my promised husband, you are now only nineteen

"To wait for you, my betrothed, were no less a joy than a duty. We are pledged to each other for the time of

"My dear one," he answered, "I doubt whether I should be able to know you in another body, under another

"That I cannot do," she said. "Only the Gods and the Buddhas know how and where we shall meet. But I am

sure very, very sure that, if you be not unwilling to receive me, I shall be able to come back to you...

Nagao had been sincerely attached to OTei; and his grief was deep. He had a mortuary tablet made,

inscribed with her zokumyo; [1] and he placed the tablet in his butsudan, [2] and every day set offerings

before it. He thought a great deal about the strange things that OTei had said to him just before her death;

and, in the hope of pleasing her spirit, he wrote a solemn promise to wed her if she could ever return to him in

another body. This written promise he sealed with his seal, and placed in the butsudan beside the mortuary

Nevertheless, as Nagao was an only son, it was necessary that he should marry. He soon found himself

obliged to yield to the wishes of his family, and to accept a wife of his father's choosing. After his marriage

he continued to set offerings before the tablet of OTei; and he never failed to remember her with affection.

But by degrees her image became dim in his memory, like a dream that is hard to recall. And the years

During those years many misfortunes came upon him. He lost his parents by death, then his wife and his

only child. So that he found himself alone in the world. He abandoned his desolate home, and set out upon a

One day, in the course of his travels, he arrived at Ikao, a mountainvillage still famed for its thermal

springs, and for the beautiful scenery of its neighborhood. In the villageinn at which he stopped, a young

girl came to wait upon him; and, at the first sight of her face, he felt his heart leap as it had never leaped

before. So strangely did she resemble OTei that he pinched himself to make sure that he was not dreaming.

As she went and came, bringing fire and food, or arranging the chamber of the guest, her every attitude

and motion revived in him some gracious memory of the girl to whom he had been pledged in his youth. He

spoke to her; and she responded in a soft, clear voice of which the sweetness saddened him with a sadness of

"Elder Sister (3), so much do you look like a person whom I knew long ago, that I was startled when you first

entered this room. Pardon me, therefore, for asking what is your native place, and what is your name?"

"My name is OTei; and you are Nagao Chosei of Echigo, my promised husband. Seventeen years ago, I

died in Niigata: then you made in writing a promise to marry me if ever I could come back to this world in

the body of a woman; and you sealed that written promise with your seal, and put it in the butsudan,

Nagao married her; and the marriage was a happy one. But at no time afterwards could she remember what

she had told him in answer to his question at Ikao: neither could she remember anything of her previous

existence. The recollection of the former birth, mysteriously kindled in the moment of that meeting, had

Three hundred years ago, in the village called Asamimura, in the district called Onsengori, in the province of

Iyo, there lived a good man named Tokubei. This Tokubei was the richest person in the district, and the

muraosa, or headman, of the village. In most matters he was fortunate; but he reached the age of forty without

knowing the happiness of becoming a father. Therefore he and his wife, in the affliction of their

childlessness, addressed many prayers to the divinity Fudo Myo O, who had a famous temple, called Saihoji,

At last their prayers were heard: the wife of Tokubei gave birth to a daughter. The child was very pretty; and

she received the name of Tsuyu. As the mother's milk was deficient, a milknurse, called OSode, was hired

OTsuyu grew up to be a very beautiful girl; but at the age of fifteen she fell sick, and the doctors thought

that she was going to die. In that time the nurse OSode, who loved OTsuyu with a real mother's love, went

to the temple Saihoji, and fervently prayed to FudoSama on behalf of the girl. Every day, for twentyone

days, she went to the temple and prayed; and at the end of that time, OTsuyu suddenly and completely

Then there was great rejoicing in the house of Tokubei; and he gave a feast to all his friends in celebration of

the happy event. But on the night of the feast the nurse OSode was suddenly taken ill; and on the following

morning, the doctor, who had been summoned to attend her, announced that she was dying.

Then the family, in great sorrow, gathered about her bed, to bid her farewell. But she said to them:

"It is time that I should tell you something which you do not know. My prayer has been heard. I besought

FudoSama that I might be permitted to die in the place of OTsuyu; and this great favor has been granted

me. Therefore you must not grieve about my death... But I have one request to make. I promised FudoSama

that I would have a cherrytree planted in the garden of Saihoji, for a thankoffering and a commemoration.

Now I shall not be able myself to plant the tree there: so I must beg that you will fulfill that vow for me...

After the funeral of OSode, a young cherrytree, the finest that could be found, was planted in the

garden of Saihoji by the parents of OTsuyu. The tree grew and flourished; and on the sixteenth day of the

second month of the following year, the anniversary of OSode's death, it blossomed in a wonderful

way. So it continued to blossom for two hundred and fiftyfour years, always upon the sixteenth day of the

second month; and its flowers, pink and white, were like the nipples of a woman's breasts, bedewed with

It had been ordered that the execution should take place in the garden of the yashiki (1). So the man was

taken there, and made to kneel down in a wide sanded space crossed by a line of tobiishi, or

steppingstones, such as you may still see in Japanese landscapegardens. His arms were bound behind him.

Retainers brought water in buckets, and ricebags filled with pebbles; and they packed the ricebags round

the kneeling man, so wedging him in that he could not move. The master came, and observed the

"Honored Sir, the fault for which I have been doomed I did not wittingly commit. It was only my very great

stupidity which caused the fault. Having been born stupid, by reason of my Karma, I could not always help

making mistakes. But to kill a man for being stupid is wrong, and that wrong will be repaid. So surely as

you kill me, so surely shall I be avenged; out of the resentment that you provoke will come the vengeance;

If any person be killed while feeling strong resentment, the ghost of that person will be able to take

vengeance upon the killer. This the samurai knew. He replied very gently, almost caressingly:

"We shall allow you to frighten us as much as you please after you are dead. But it is difficult to believe

that you mean what you say. Will you try to give us some sign of your great resentment after your head

"Very well," said the samurai, drawing his long sword; "I am now going to cut off your head. Directly in

front of you there is a steppingstone. After your head has been cut off, try to bite the steppingstone. If your

angry ghost can help you to do that, some of us may be frightened... Will you try to bite the stone?"

There was a flash, a swish, a crunching thud: the bound body bowed over the rice sacks, two long

bloodjets pumping from the shorn neck; and the head rolled upon the sand. Heavily toward the

steppingstone it rolled: then, suddenly bounding, it caught the upper edge of the stone between its teeth,

None spoke; but the retainers stared in horror at their master. He seemed to be quite unconcerned. He merely

held out his sword to the nearest attendant, who, with a wooden dipper, poured water over the blade from haft

to point, and then carefully wiped the steel several times with sheets of soft paper... And thus ended the

For months thereafter, the retainers and the domestics lived in ceaseless fear of ghostly visitation. None of

them doubted that the promised vengeance would come; and their constant terror caused them to hear and to

see much that did not exist. They became afraid of the sound of the wind in the bamboos, afraid even of

the stirring of shadows in the garden. At last, after taking counsel together, they decided to petition their

"Quite unnecessary," the samurai said, when his chief retainer had uttered the general wish... "I understand

that the desire of a dying man for revenge may be a cause for fear. But in this case there is nothing to fear."

The retainer looked at his master beseechingly, but hesitated to ask the reason of the alarming confidence.

"Oh, the reason is simple enough," declared the samurai, divining the unspoken doubt. "Only the very last

intention of the fellow could have been dangerous; and when I challenged him to give me the sign, I diverted

his mind from the desire of revenge. He died with the set purpose of biting the steppingstone; and that

purpose he was able to accomplish, but nothing else. All the rest he must have forgotten... So you need not

Eight centuries ago, the priests of Mugenyama, in the province of Totomi (1), wanted a big bell for their

temple; and they asked the women of their parish to help them by contributing old bronze mirrors for

[Even today, in the courts of certain Japanese temples, you may see heaps of old bronze mirrors contributed

for such a purpose. The largest collection of this kind that I ever saw was in the court of a temple of the Jodo

sect, at Hakata, in Kyushu: the mirrors had been given for the making of a bronze statue of Amida,

There was at that time a young woman, a farmer's wife, living at Mugenyama, who presented her mirror to

the temple, to be used for bellmetal. But afterwards she much regretted her mirror. She remembered things

that her mother had told her about it; and she remembered that it had belonged, not only to her mother but to

her mother's mother and grandmother; and she remembered some happy smiles which it had reflected. Of

course, if she could have offered the priests a certain sum of money in place of the mirror, she could have

asked them to give back her heirloom. But she had not the money necessary. Whenever she went to the

temple, she saw her mirror lying in the courtyard, behind a railing, among hundreds of other mirrors heaped

there together. She knew it by the ShoChikuBai in relief on the back of it, those three fortunate

emblems of Pine, Bamboo, and Plumflower, which delighted her babyeyes when her mother first showed

her the mirror. She longed for some chance to steal the mirror, and hide it, that she might thereafter

treasure it always. But the chance did not come; and she became very unhappy, felt as if she had foolishly

given away a part of her life. She thought about the old saying that a mirror is the Soul of a Woman (a

saying mystically expressed, by the Chinese character for Soul, upon the backs of many bronze mirrors),

and she feared that it was true in weirder ways than she had before imagined. But she could not dare to speak

Now, when all the mirrors contributed for the Mugenyama bell had been sent to the foundry, the

bellfounders discovered that there was one mirror among them which would not melt. Again and again they

tried to melt it; but it resisted all their efforts. Evidently the woman who had given that mirror to the temple

must have regretted the giving. She had not presented her offering with all her heart; and therefore her selfish

soul, remaining attached to the mirror, kept it hard and cold in the midst of the furnace.

Of course everybody heard of the matter, and everybody soon knew whose mirror it was that would not melt.

And because of this public exposure of her secret fault, the poor woman became very much ashamed and

very angry. And as she could not bear the shame, she drowned herself, after having written a farewell letter

"When I am dead, it will not be difficult to melt the mirror and to cast the bell. But, to the person who breaks

You must know that the last wish or promise of anybody who dies in anger, or performs suicide in

anger, is generally supposed to possess a supernatural force. After the dead woman's mirror had been

melted, and the bell had been successfully cast, people remembered the words of that letter. They felt

sure that the spirit of the writer would give wealth to the breaker of the bell; and, as soon as the bell

had been suspended in the court of the temple, they went in multitude to ring it. With all their might

and main they swung the ringingbeam; but the bell proved to be a good bell, and it bravely

withstood their assaults. Nevertheless, the people were not easily discouraged. Day after day, at all

hours, they continued to ring the bell furiously, caring nothing whatever for the protests of the

priests. So the ringing became an affliction; and the priests could not endure it; and they got rid of the

bell by rolling it down the hill into a swamp. The swamp was deep, and swallowed it up, and that

was the end of the bell. Only its legend remains; and in that legend it is called the MugenKane, or

Now there are queer old Japanese beliefs in the magical efficacy of a certain mental operation implied,

though not described, by the verb nazoraeru. The word itself cannot be adequately rendered by any English

word; for it is used in relation to many kinds of mimetic magic, as well as in relation to the performance of

many religious acts of faith. Common meanings of nazoraeru, according to dictionaries, are "to imitate," "to

compare," "to liken;" but the esoteric meaning is to substitute, in imagination, one object or action for

For example: you cannot afford to build a Buddhist temple; but you can easily lay a pebble before the

image of the Buddha, with the same pious feeling that would prompt you to build a temple if you were rich

enough to build one. The merit of so offering the pebble becomes equal, or almost equal, to the merit of

erecting a temple... You cannot read the six thousand seven hundred and seventyone volumes of the

Buddhist texts; but you can make a revolving library, containing them, turn round, by pushing it like a

windlass. and if you push with an earnest wish that you could read the six thousand seven hundred and

seventyone volumes, you will acquire the same merit has the reading of them would enable you to gain... So

The magical meanings could not all be explained without a great variety of examples; but, for present

purposes, the following will serve. If you should make a little man of straw, for the same reason that Sister

Helen made a little man of wax, and nail it, with nails not less than five inches long, to some tree in a

templegrove at the Hour of the Ox (2), and if the person, imaginatively represented by that little straw

man, should die thereafter in atrocious agony, that would illustrate one signification of nazoraeru... Or, let

us suppose that a robber has entered your house during the night, and carried away your valuables. If you can

discover the footprints of that robber in your garden, and then promptly burn a very large moxa on each of

them, the soles of the feet of the robber will become inflamed, and will allow him no rest until he returns, of

his own accord, to put himself at your mercy. That is another kind of mimetic magic expressed by the term

After the bell had been rolled into the swamp, there was, of course, no more chance of ringing it in such wise

as to break it. But persons who regretted this loss of opportunity would strike and break objects imaginatively

substituted for the bell, thus hoping to please the spirit of the owner of the mirror that had made so much

trouble. One of these persons was a woman called Umegae, famed in Japanese legend because of her

relation to Kajiwara Kagesue, a warrior of the Heike clan. While the pair were traveling together, Kajiwara

one day found himself in great straits for want of money; and Umegae, remembering the tradition of the Bell

of Mugen, took a basin of bronze, and, mentally representing it to be the bell, beat upon it until she broke

it, crying out, at the same time, for three hundred pieces of gold. A guest of the inn where the pair were

stopping made inquiry as to the cause of the banging and the crying, and, on learning the story of the trouble,

actually presented Umegae with three hundred ryo (3) in gold. Afterwards a song was made about Umegae's

["If, by striking upon the washbasin of Umegae, I could make honorable money come to me, then would I

After this happening, the fame of the MugenKane became great; and many people followed the example of

Umegae, thereby hoping to emulate her luck. Among these folk was a dissolute farmer who lived near

Mugenyama, on t he bank of the Oigawa. Having wasted his substance in riotous living, this farmer made for

himself, out of the mud in his garden, a claymodel of the MugenKane; and he beat the claybell, and broke

"Then, out of the ground before him, rose up the figure of a whiterobed woman, with long looseflowing

hair, holding a covered jar. And the woman said: "I have come to answer your fervent prayer as it deserves to

be answered. Take, therefore, this jar." So saying, she put the jar into his hands, and disappeared.

Into his house the happy man rushed, to tell his wife the good news. He set down in front of her the covered

jar, which was heavy, and they opened it together. And they found that it was filled, up to the very brim,

Once, when Muso Kokushi, a priest of the Zen sect, was journeying alone through the province of Mino (1),

he lost his way in a mountaindistrict where there was nobody to direct him. For a long time he wandered

about helplessly; and he was beginning to despair of finding shelter for the night, when he perceived, on the

top of a hill lighted by the last rays of the sun, one of those little hermitages, called anjitsu, which are built for

solitary priests. It seemed to be in ruinous condition; but he hastened to it eagerly, and found that it was

inhabited by an aged priest, from whom he begged the favor of a night's lodging. This the old man harshly

refused; but he directed Muso to a certain hamlet, in the valley adjoining where lodging and food could be

Muso found his way to the hamlet, which consisted of less than a dozen farmcottages; and he was kindly

received at the dwelling of the headman. Forty or fifty persons were assembled in the principal apartment, at

the moment of Muso's arrival; but he was shown into a small separate room, where he was promptly supplied

with food and bedding. Being very tired, he lay down to rest at an early hour; but a little before midnight he

was roused from sleep by a sound of loud weeping in the next apartment. Presently the slidingscreens were

gently pushed apart; and a young man, carrying a lighted lantern, entered the room, respectfully saluted him,

"Reverend Sir, it is my painful duty to tell you that I am now the responsible head of this house. Yesterday I

was only the eldest son. But when you came here, tired as you were, we did not wish that you should feel

embarrassed in any way: therefore we did not tell you that father had died only a few hours before. The

people whom you saw in the next room are the inhabitants of this village: they all assembled here to pay their

last respects to the dead; and now they are going to another village, about three miles off, for by our

custom, no one of us may remain in this village during the night after a death has taken place. We make the

proper offerings and prayers; then we go away, leaving the corpse alone. Strange things always happen in

the house where a corpse has thus been left: so we think that it will be better for you to come away with us.

We can find you good lodging in the other village. But perhaps, as you are a priest, you have no fear of

demons or evil spirits; and, if you are not afraid of being left alone with the body, you will be very welcome

to the use of this poor house. However, I must tell you that nobody, except a priest, would dare to remain here

"For your kind intention and your generous hospitality and am deeply grateful. But I am sorry that you did

not tell me of your father's death when I came; for, though I was a little tired, I certainly was not so tired

that I should have found difficulty in doing my duty as a priest. Had you told me, I could have performed the

service before your departure. As it is, I shall perform the service after you have gone away; and I shall stay

by the body until morning. I do not know what you mean by your words about the danger of staying here

alone; but I am not afraid ofghosts or demons: therefore please to feel no anxiety on my account."

The young man appeared to be rejoiced by these assurances, and expressed his gratitude in fitting words.

Then the other members of the family, and the folk assembled in the adjoining room, having been told of the

priest's kind promises, came to thank him, after which the master of the house said:

"Now, reverend Sir, much as we regret to leave you alone, we must bid you farewell. By the rule of our

village, none of us can stay here after midnight. We beg, kind Sir, that you will take every care of your

honorable body, while we are unable to attend upon you. And if you happen to hear or see anything strange

during our absence, please tell us of the matter when we return in the morning."

All then left the house, except the priest, who went to the room where the dead body was lying. The usual

offerings had been set before the corpse; and a small Buddhist lamp tomyo was burning. The priest

recited the service, and performed the funeral ceremonies, after which he entered into meditation. So

meditating he remained through several silent hours; and there was no sound in the deserted village. But,

when the hush of the night was at its deepest, there noiselessly entered a Shape, vague and vast; and in the

same moment Muso found himself without power to move or speak. He saw that Shape lift the corpse, as

with hands, devour it, more quickly than a cat devours a rat, beginning at the head, and eating everything:

the hair and the bones and even the shroud. And the monstrous Thing, having thus consumed the body,

turned to the offerings, and ate them also. Then it went away, as mysteriously as it had come.

When the villagers returned next morning, they found the priest awaiting them at the door of the headman's

dwelling. All in turn saluted him; and when they had entered, and looked about the room, no one expressed

any surprise at the disappearance of the dead body and the offerings. But the master of the house said to

"Reverent Sir, you have probably seen unpleasant things during the night: all of us were anxious about you.

But now we are very happy to find you alive and unharmed. Gladly we would have stayed with you, if it had

been possible. But the law of our village, as I told you last evening, obliges us to quit our houses after a death

has taken place, and to leave the corpse alone. Whenever this law has been broken, heretofore, some great

misfortune has followed. Whenever it is obeyed, we find that the corpse and the offerings disappear during

Then Muso told of the dim and awful Shape that had entered the deathchamber to devour the body and the

offerings. No person seemed to be surprised by his narration; and the master of the house observed:

"What you have told us, reverend Sir, agrees with what has been said about this matter from ancient time."

"Does not the priest on the hill sometimes perform the funeral service for your dead?"

"The priest who yesterday evening directed me to this village," answered Muso. "I called at his anjitsu on the

The listeners looked at each other, as in astonishment; and, after a moment of silence, the master of the house

"Reverend Sir, there is no priest and there is no anjitsu on the hill. For the time of many generations there has

Muso said nothing more on the subject; for it was evident that his kind hosts supposed him to have been

deluded by some goblin. But after having bidden them farewell, and obtained all necessary information as to

his road, he determined to look again for the hermitage on the hill, and so to ascertain whether he had really

been deceived. He found the anjitsu without any difficulty; and, this time, its aged occupant invited him to

enter. When he had done so, the hermit humbly bowed down before him, exclaiming: "Ah! I am ashamed !

"You need not be ashamed for having refused me shelter," said Muso. "you directed me to the village yonder,

"I can give no man shelter," the recluse made answer; and it is not for the refusal that I am ashamed. I am

ashamed only that you should have seen me in my real shape, for it was I who devoured the corpse and the

offerings last night before your eyes... Know, reverend Sir, that I am a jikininki, [1] an eater of human

flesh. Have pity upon me, and suffer me to confess the secret fault by which I became reduced to this

"A long, long time ago, I was a priest in this desolate region. There was no other priest for many leagues

around. So, in that time, the bodies of the mountainfolk who died used to be brought here, sometimes

from great distances, in order that I might repeat over them the holy service. But I repeated the service and

performed the rites only as a matter of business; I thought only of the food and the clothes that my sacred

profession enabled me to gain. And because of this selfish impiety I was reborn, immediately after my death,

into the state of a jikininki. Since then I have been obliged to feed upon the corpses of the people who die in

this district: every one of them I must devour in the way that you saw last night... Now, reverend Sir, let me

beseech you to perform a Segakiservice [2] for me: help me by your prayers, I entreat you, so that I may be

No sooner had the hermit uttered this petition than he disappeared; and the hermitage also disappeared at the

same instant. And Muso Kokushi found himself kneeling alone in the high grass, beside an ancient and

mossgrown tomb of the form called gorinishi, [3] which seemed to be the tomb of a priest.

On the Akasaka Road, in Tokyo, there is a slope called Kiinokunizaka, which means the Slope of the

Province of Kii. I do not know why it is called the Slope of the Province of Kii. On one side of this slope you

see an ancient moat, deep and very wide, with high green banks rising up to some place of gardens; and

on the other side of the road extend the long and lofty walls of an imperial palace. Before the era of

streetlamps and jinrikishas, this neighborhood was very lonesome after dark; and belated pedestrians would

go miles out of their way rather than mount the Kiinokunizaka, alone, after sunset.

The last man who saw the Mujina was an old merchant of the Kyobashi quarter, who died about thirty years

One night, at a late hour, he was hurrying up the Kiinokunizaka, when he perceived a woman crouching

by the moat, all alone, and weeping bitterly. Fearing that she intended to drown herself, he stopped to offer

her any assistance or consolation in his power. She appeared to be a slight and graceful person, handsomely

dressed; and her hair was arranged like that of a young girl of good family. "Ojochu," [1] he exclaimed,

approaching her, "Ojochu, do not cry like that!... Tell me what the trouble is; and if there be any way to

help you, I shall be glad to help you." (He really meant what he said; for he was a very kind man.) But she

continued to weep, hiding her face from him with one of her long sleeves. "Ojochu," he said again, as

gently as he could, "please, please listen to me!... This is no place for a young lady at night! Do not cry, I

implore you! only tell me how I may be of some help to you!" Slowly she rose up, but turned her back to

him, and continued to moan and sob behind her sleeve. He laid his hand lightly upon her shoulder, and

pleaded: "Ojochu! Ojochu! Ojochu!... Listen to me, just for one little moment!... Ojochu!

Ojochu!"... Then that Ojochu turned around, and dropped her sleeve, and stroked her face with her hand;

and the man saw that she had no eyes or nose or mouth, and he screamed and ran away. (2)

Up Kiinokunizaka he ran and ran; and all was black and empty before him. On and on he ran, never

daring to look back; and at last he saw a lantern, so far away that it looked like the gleam of a firefly; and he

made for it. It proved to be only the lantern of an itinerant sobaseller, [2] who had set down his stand by the

roadside; but any light and any human companionship was good after that experience; and he flung himself

"Kore! kore!" (3) roughly exclaimed the sobaman. "Here! what is the matter with you? Anybody hurt you?"

"Not robbers, not robbers," gasped the terrified man... "I saw... I saw a woman by the moat; and she

"He! (4) Was it anything like THIS that she showed you?" cried the sobaman, stroking his own face

which therewith became like unto an Egg... And, simultaneously, the light went out.

Nearly five hundred years ago there was a samurai, named Isogai Heidazaemon Taketsura, in the service of

the Lord Kikuji, of Kyushu. This Isogai had inherited, from many warlike ancestors, a natural aptitude for

military exercises, and extraordinary strength. While yet a boy he had surpassed his teachers in the art of

swordsmanship, in archery, and in the use of the spear, and had displayed all the capacities of a daring and

skillful soldier. Afterwards, in the time of the Eikyo [1] war, he so distinguished himself that high honors

were bestowed upon him. But when the house of Kikuji came to ruin, Isogai found himself without a master.

He might then easily have obtained service under another daimyo; but as he had never sought distinction for

his own sake alone, and as his heart remained true to his former lord, he preferred to give up the world. so he

cut off his hair, and became a traveling priest, taking the Buddhist name of Kwairyo.

But always, under the koromo [2] of the priest, Kwairyo kept warm within him the heart of the samurai. As in

other years he had laughed at peril, so now also he scorned danger; and in all weathers and all seasons he

journeyed to preach the good Law in places where no other priest would have dared to go. For that age was

an age of violence and disorder; and upon the highways there was no security for the solitary traveler, even if

In the course of his first long journey, Kwairyo had occasion to visit the province of Kai. (1) One evening, as

he was traveling through the mountains of that province, darkness overcame him in a very lonesome district,

leagues away from any village. So he resigned himself to pass the night under the stars; and having found a

suitable grassy spot, by the roadside, he lay down there, and prepared to sleep. He had always welcomed

discomfort; and even a bare rock was for him a good bed, when nothing better could be found, and the root of

a pinetree an excellent pillow. His body was iron; and he never troubled himself about dews or rain or frost

Scarcely had he lain down when a man came along the road, carrying an axe and a great bundle of chopped

wood. This woodcutter halted on seeing Kwairyo lying down, and, after a moment of silent observation, said

"What kind of a man can you be, good Sir, that you dare to lie down alone in such a place as this?... There are

"My friend," cheerfully answered Kwairyo, "I am only a wandering priest, a 'CloudandWaterGuest,' as

folks call it: Unsuinoryokaku. (2) And I am not in the least afraid of Hairy Things, if you mean

goblinfoxes, or goblinbadgers, or any creatures of that kind. As for lonesome places, I like them: they are

suitable for meditation. I am accustomed to sleeping in the open air: and I have learned never to be anxious

"You must be indeed a brave man, Sir Priest," the peasant responded, "to lie down here! This place has a bad

name, a very bad name. But, as the proverb has it, Kunshi ayayuki ni chikayorazu ['The superior man does

not needlessly expose himself to peril']; and I must assure you, Sir, that it is very dangerous to sleep here.

Therefore, although my house is only a wretched thatched hut, let me beg of you to come home with me at

once. In the way of food, I have nothing to offer you; but there is a roof at least, and you can sleep under it

He spoke earnestly; and Kwairyo, liking the kindly tone of the man, accepted this modest offer. The

woodcutter guided him along a narrow path, leading up from the main road through mountainforest. It was a

rough and dangerous path, sometimes skirting precipices, sometimes offering nothing but a network of

slippery roots for the foot to rest upon, sometimes winding over or between masses of jagged rock. But at

last Kwairyo found himself upon a cleared space at the top of a hill, with a full moon shining overhead; and

he saw before him a small thatched cottage, cheerfully lighted from within. The woodcutter led him to a shed

at the back of the house, whither water had been conducted, through bamboopipes, from some neighboring

stream; and the two men washed their feet. Beyond the shed was a vegetable garden, and a grove of cedars

and bamboos; and beyond the trees appeared the glimmer of a cascade, pouring from some loftier height, and

As Kwairyo entered the cottage with his guide, he perceived four persons men and women warming

their hands at a little fire kindled in the ro [1] of the principle apartment. They bowed low to the priest, and

greeted him in the most respectful manner. Kwairyo wondered that persons so poor, and dwelling in such a

solitude, should be aware of the polite forms of greeting. "These are good people," he thought to himself;

"and they must have been taught by some one well acquainted with the rules of propriety." Then turning to

"From the kindness of your speech, and from the very polite welcome given me by your household, I imagine

that you have not always been a woodcutter. Perhaps you formerly belonged to one of the upper classes?"

"Sir, you are not mistaken. Though now living as you find me, I was once a person of some distinction. My

story is the story of a ruined life ruined by my own fault. I used to be in the service of a daimyo; and my

rank in that service was not inconsiderable. But I loved women and wine too well; and under the influence of

passion I acted wickedly. My selfishness brought about the ruin of our house, and caused the death of many

persons. Retribution followed me; and I long remained a fugitive in the land. Now I often pray that I may be

able to make some atonement for the evil which I did, and to reestablish the ancestral home. But I fear that I

shall never find any way of so doing. Nevertheless, I try to overcome the karma of my errors by sincere

Kwairyo was pleased by this announcement of good resolve; and he said to the aruji:

"My friend, I have had occasion to observe that man, prone to folly in their youth, may in after years become

very earnest in right living. In the holy sutras it is written that those strongest in wrongdoing can become, by

power of good resolve, the strongest in rightdoing. I do not doubt that you have a good heart; and I hope

that better fortune will come to you. Tonight I shall recite the sutras for your sake, and pray that you may

With these assurances, Kwairyo bade the aruji goodnight; and his host showed him to a very small

sideroom, where a bed had been made ready. Then all went to sleep except the priest, who began to read the

sutras by the light of a paper lantern. Until a late hour he continued to read and pray: then he opened a little

window in his little sleepingroom, to take a last look at the landscape before lying down. The night was

beautiful: there was no cloud in the sky: there was no wind; and the strong moonlight threw down sharp black

shadows of foliage, and glittered on the dews of the garden. Shrillings of crickets and bellinsects (3) made a

musical tumult; and the sound of the neighboring cascade deepened with the night. Kwairyo felt thirsty as he

listened to the noise of the water; and, remembering the bamboo aqueduct at the rear of the house, he thought

that he could go there and get a drink without disturbing the sleeping household. Very gently he pushed apart

the slidingscreens that separated his room from the main apartment; and he saw, by the light of the lantern,

For one instant he stood bewildered, imagining a crime. But in another moment he perceived that there

was no blood, and that the headless necks did not look as if they had been cut. Then he thought to himself:

"Either this is an illusion made by goblins, or I have been lured into the dwelling of a RokuroKubi... (4) In

the book Soshinki (5) it is written that if one find the body of a RokuroKubi without its head, and remove

the body to another place, the head will never be able to join itself again to the neck. And the book further

says that when the head comes back and finds that its body has been moved, it will strike itself upon the floor

three times, bounding like a ball, and will pant as in great fear, and presently die. Now, if these be

RokuroKubi, they mean me no good; so I shall be justified in following the instructions of the book."...

He seized the body of the aruji by the feet, pulled it to the window, and pushed it out. Then he went to the

backdoor, which he found barred; and he surmised that the heads had made their exit through the

smokehole in the roof, which had been left open. Gently unbarring the door, he made his way to the garden,

and proceeded with all possible caution to the grove beyond it. He heard voices talking in the grove; and he

went in the direction of the voices, stealing from shadow to shadow, until he reached a good hidingplace.

Then, from behind a trunk, he caught sight of the heads, all five of them, flitting about, and chatting as

they flitted. They were eating worms and insects which they found on the ground or among the trees.

"Ah, that traveling priest who came tonight! how fat all his body is! When we shall have eaten him, our

bellies will be well filled... I was foolish to talk to him as I did; it only set him to reciting the sutras on

behalf of my soul! To go near him while he is reciting would be difficult; and we cannot touch him so long as

he is praying. But as it is now nearly morning, perhaps he has gone to sleep... Some one of you go to the

Another head the head of a young woman immediately rose up and flitted to the house, lightly as a bat.

After a few minutes it came back, and cried out huskily, in a tone of great alarm:

"That traveling priest is not in the house; he is gone! But that is not the worst of the matter. He has taken

At this announcement the head of the aruji distinctly visible in the moonlight assumed a frightful

aspect: its eyes opened monstrously; its hair stood up bristling; and its teeth gnashed. Then a cry burst from

"Since my body has been moved, to rejoin it is not possible! Then I must die!... And all through the work of

that priest! Before I die I will get at that priest! I will tear him! I will devour him!... AND THERE HE

In the same moment the head of the aruji, followed by the other four heads, sprang at Kwairyo. But the strong

priest had already armed himself by plucking up a young tree; and with that tree he struck the heads as they

came, knocking them from him with tremendous blows. Four of them fled away. But the head of the aruji,

though battered again and again, desperately continued to bound at the priest, and at last caught him by the

left sleeve of his robe. Kwairyo, however, as quickly gripped the head by its topknot, and repeatedly struck it.

It did not release its hold; but it uttered a long moan, and thereafter ceased to struggle. It was dead. But its

teeth still held the sleeve; and, for all his great strength, Kwairyo could not force open the jaws.

With the head still hanging to his sleeve he went back to the house, and there caught sight of the other four

RokuroKubi squatting together, with their bruised and bleeding heads reunited to their bodies. But when

they perceived him at the backdoor all screamed, "The priest! the priest!" and fled, through the other

Eastward the sky was brightening; day was about to dawn; and Kwairyo knew that the power of the goblins

was limited to the hours of darkness. He looked at the head clinging to his sleeve, its face all fouled with

blood and foam and clay; and he laughed aloud as he thought to himself: "What a miyage! [4] the head of

a goblin!" After which he gathered together his few belongings, and leisurely descended the mountain to

Right on he journeyed, until he came to Suwa in Shinano; (6) and into the main street of Suwa he solemnly

strode, with the head dangling at his elbow. Then woman fainted, and children screamed and ran away; and

there was a great crowding and clamoring until the torite (as the police in those days were called) seized the

priest, and took him to jail. For they supposed the head to be the head of a murdered man who, in the moment

of being killed, had caught the murderer's sleeve in his teeth. As the Kwairyo, he only smiled and said

nothing when they questioned him. So, after having passed a night in prison, he was brought before the

magistrates of the district. Then he was ordered to explain how he, a priest, had been found with the head of a

man fastened to his sleeve, and why he had dared thus shamelessly to parade his crime in the sight of people.

"Sirs, I did not fasten the head to my sleeve: it fastened itself there much against my will. And I have not

committed any crime. For this is not the head of a man; it is the head of a goblin; and, if I caused the death

of the goblin, I did not do so by any shedding of blood, but simply by taking the precautions necessary to

assure my own safety."... And he proceeded to relate the whole of the adventure, bursting into another

But the magistrates did not laugh. They judged him to be a hardened criminal, and his story an insult to their

intelligence. Therefore, without further questioning, they decided to order his immediate execution, all of

them except one, a very old man. This aged officer had made no remark during the trial; but, after having

"Let us first examine the head carefully; for this, I think, has not yet been done. If the priest has spoken truth,

So the head, still holding in its teeth the koromo that had been stripped from Kwairyo's shoulders, was put

before the judges. The old man turned it round and round, carefully examined it, and discovered, on the nape

of its neck, several strange red characters. He called the attention of his colleagues to these, and also bad

them observe that the edges of the neck nowhere presented the appearance of having been cut by any weapon.

On the contrary, the line of leverance was smooth as the line at which a falling leaf detaches itself from the

"I am quite sure that the priest told us nothing but the truth. This is the head of a RokuroKubi. In the book

Nanhoibutsushi it is written that certain red characters can always be found upon the nape of the neck of

a real RokuroKubi. There are the characters: you can see for yourselves that they have not been painted.

Moreover, it is well known that such goblins have been dwelling in the mountains of the province of Kai

from very ancient time... But you, Sir," he exclaimed, turning to Kwairyo, "what sort of sturdy priest may

you be? Certainly you have given proof of a courage that few priests possess; and you have the air of a

"You have guessed rightly, Sir," Kwairyo responded. "Before becoming a priest, I long followed the

profession of arms; and in those days I never feared man or devil. My name then was Isogai Heidazaemon

At the mention of that name, a murmur of admiration filled the courtroom.; for there were many present

who remembered it. And Kwairyo immediately found himself among friends instead of judges, friends

anxious to prove their admiration by fraternal kindness. With honor they escorted him to the residence of the

daimyo, who welcomed him, and feasted him, and made him a handsome present before allowing him to

depart. When Kwairyo left Suwa, he was as happy as any priest is permitted to be in this transitory world. As

for the head, he took it with him, jocosely insisting that he intended it for a miyage.

A day or two after leaving Suwa, Kwairyo met with a robber, who stopped him in a lonesome place, and bade

him strip. Kwairyo at once removed his koromo, and offered it to the robber, who then first perceived what

was hanging to the sleeve. Though brave, the highwayman was startled: he dropped the garment, and sprang

back. Then he cried out: "You! what kind of a priest are you? Why, you are a worse man than I am! It

is true that I have killed people; but I never walked about with anybody's head fastened to my sleeve... Well,

Sir priest, I suppose we are of the same calling; and I must say that I admire you!... Now that head would be

of use to me: I could frighten people with it. Will you sell it? You can have my robe in exchange for your

"I shall let you have the head and the robe if you insist; but I must tell you that this is not the head of a man. It

is a goblin's head. So, if you buy it, and have any trouble in consequence, please to remember that you were

"What a nice priest you are!" exclaimed the robber. "You kill men, and jest about it!... But I am really in

earnest. Here is my robe; and here is the money; and let me have the head... What is the use of joking?"

"Take the thing," said Kwairyo. "I was not joking. The only joke if there be any joke at all is that you

are fool enough to pay good money for a goblin's head." And Kwairyo, loudly laughing, went upon his way.

Thus the robber got the head and the koromo; and for some time he played goblinpriest upon the highways.

But, reaching the neighborhood of Suwa, he there leaned the true story of the head; and he then became afraid

that the spirit of the RokuroKubi might give him trouble. So he made up his mind to take back the head to

the place from which it had come, and to bury it with its body. He found his way to the lonely cottage in the

mountains of Kai; but nobody was there, and he could not discover the body. Therefore he buried the head by

itself, in the grove behind the cottage; and he had a tombstone set up over the grave; and he caused a

Segakiservice to be performed on behalf of the spirit of the RokuroKubi. And that tombstone known as

the Tombstone of the RokuroKubi may be seen (at least so the Japanese storyteller declares) even unto

A long time ago, in the province of Tamba (1), there lived a rich merchant named Inamuraya Gensuke. He

had a daughter called OSono. As she was very clever and pretty, he thought it would be a pity to let her

grow up with only such teaching as the countryteachers could give her: so he sent her, in care of some trusty

attendants, to Kyoto, that she might be trained in the polite accomplishments taught to the ladies of the

capital. After she had thus been educated, she was married to a friend of her father's family a merchant

named Nagaraya; and she lived happily with him for nearly four years. They had one child, a But

On the night after the funeral of OSono, her little son said that his mamma had come back, and was in the

room upstairs. She had smiled at him, but would not talk to him: so he became afraid, and ran away. Then

some of the family went upstairs to the room which had been OSono's; and they were startled to see, by the

light of a small lamp which had been kindled before a shrine in that room, the figure of the dead mother. She

appeared as if standing in front of a tansu, or chest of drawers, that still contained her ornaments and her

wearingapparel. Her head and shoulders could be very distinctly seen; but from the waist downwards the

figure thinned into invisibility; it was like an imperfect reflection of her, and transparent as a shadow on

Then the folk were afraid, and left the room. Below they consulted together; and the mother of OSono's

husband said: "A woman is fond of her small things; and OSono was much attached to her belongings.

Perhaps she has come back to look at them. Many dead persons will do that, unless the things be given to

the parishtemple. If we present OSono's robes and girdles to the temple, her spirit will probably find rest."

I was agreed that this should be done as soon as possible. So on the following morning the drawers were

emptied; and all of OSono's ornaments and dresses were taken to the temple. But she came back the next

night, and looked at the tansu as before. And she came back also on the night following, and the night after

The mother of OSono's husband then went to the parishtemple, and told the chief priest all that had

happened, and asked for ghostly counsel. The temple was a Zen temple; and the headpriest was a learned

old man, known as Daigen Osho. He said: "There must be something about which she is anxious, in or near

that tansu." "But we emptied all the drawers," replied the woman; "there is nothing in the tansu."

"Well," said Daigen Osho, "tonight I shall go to your house, and keep watch in that room, and see what can

be done. You must give orders that no person shall enter the room while I am watching, unless I call."

After sundown, Daigen Osho went to the house, and found the room made ready for him. He remained there

alone, reading the sutras; and nothing appeared until after the Hour of the Rat. [1] Then the figure of OSono

suddenly outlined itself in front of the tansu. Her face had a wistful look; and she kept her eyes fixed upon the

The priest uttered the holy formula prescribed in such cases, and then, addressing the figure by the kaimyo

[2] of OSono, said: "I have come here in order to help you. Perhaps in that tansu there is something

about which you have reason to feel anxious. Shall I try to find it for you?" The shadow appeared to give

assent by a slight motion of the head; and the priest, rising, opened the top drawer. It was empty.

Successively he opened the second, the third, and the fourth drawer; he searched carefully behind them

and beneath them; he carefully examined the interior of the chest. He found nothing. But the figure

remained gazing as wistfully as before. "What can she want?" thought the priest. Suddenly it occurred to him

that there might be something hidden under the paper with which the drawers were lined. He removed the

lining of the first drawer: nothing! He removed the lining of the second and third drawers: still nothing.

But under the lining of the lowermost drawer he found a letter. "Is this the thing about which you have

been troubled?" he asked. The shadow of the woman turned toward him, her faint gaze fixed upon the

letter. "Shall I burn it for you?" he asked. She bowed before him. "It shall be burned in the temple this very

morning," he promised; "and no one shall read it, except myself." The figure smiled and vanished.

Dawn was breaking as the priest descended the stairs, to find the family waiting anxiously below. "Do not be

The letter was burned. It was a loveletter written to OSono in the time of her studies at Kyoto. But the

In a village of Musashi Province (1), there lived two woodcutters: Mosaku and Minokichi. At the time of

which I am speaking, Mosaku was an old man; and Minokichi, his apprentice, was a lad of eighteen years.

Every day they went together to a forest situated about five miles from their village. On the way to that forest

there is a wide river to cross; and there is a ferryboat. Several times a bridge was built where the ferry is; but

the bridge was each time carried away by a flood. No common bridge can resist the current there when the

Mosaku and Minokichi were on their way home, one very cold evening, when a great snowstorm overtook

them. They reached the ferry; and they found that the boatman had gone away, leaving his boat on the other

side of the river. It was no day for swimming; and the woodcutters took shelter in the ferryman's hut,

thinking themselves lucky to find any shelter at all. There was no brazier in the hut, nor any place in which to

make a fire: it was only a twomat [1] hut, with a single door, but no window. Mosaku and Minokichi

fastened the door, and lay down to rest, with their straw raincoats over them. At first they did not feel very

The old man almost immediately fell asleep; but the boy, Minokichi, lay awake a long time, listening to the

awful wind, and the continual slashing of the snow against the door. The river was roaring; and the hut

swayed and creaked like a junk at sea. It was a terrible storm; and the air was every moment becoming

colder; and Minokichi shivered under his raincoat. But at last, in spite of the cold, he too fell asleep.

He was awakened by a showering of snow in his face. The door of the hut had been forced open; and, by the

snowlight (yukiakari), he saw a woman in the room, a woman all in white. She was bending above

Mosaku, and blowing her breath upon him; and her breath was like a bright white smoke. Almost in the

same moment she turned to Minokichi, and stooped over him. He tried to cry out, but found that he could not

utter any sound. The white woman bent down over him, lower and lower, until her face almost touched him;

and he saw that she was very beautiful, though her eyes made him afraid. For a little time she continued to

look at him; then she smiled, and she whispered: "I intended to treat you like the other man. But I

cannot help feeling some pity for you, because you are so young... You are a pretty boy, Minokichi; and I

will not hurt you now. But, if you ever tell anybody even your own mother about what you have seen

With these words, she turned from him, and passed through the doorway. Then he found himself able to

move; and he sprang up, and looked out. But the woman was nowhere to be seen; and the snow was driving

furiously into the hut. Minokichi closed the door, and secured it by fixing several billets of wood against it.

He wondered if the wind had blown it open; he thought that he might have been only dreaming, and might

have mistaken the gleam of the snowlight in the doorway for the figure of a white woman: but he could not

be sure. He called to Mosaku, and was frightened because the old man did not answer. He put out his hand in

the dark, and touched Mosaku's face, and found that it was ice! Mosaku was stark and dead...

By dawn the storm was over; and when the ferryman returned to his station, a little after sunrise, he found

Minokichi lying senseless beside the frozen body of Mosaku. Minokichi was promptly cared for, and soon

came to himself; but he remained a long time ill from the effects of the cold of that terrible night. He had

been greatly frightened also by the old man's death; but he said nothing about the vision of the woman in

white. As soon as he got well again, he returned to his calling, going alone every morning to the forest, and

coming back at nightfall with his bundles of wood, which his mother helped him to sell.

One evening, in the winter of the following year, as he was on his way home, he overtook a girl who

happened to be traveling by the same road. She was a tall, slim girl, very goodlooking; and she answered

Minokichi's greeting in a voice as pleasant to the ear as the voice of a songbird. Then he walked beside her;

and they began to talk. The girl said that her name was OYuki [2]; that she had lately lost both of her

parents; and that she was going to Yedo (2), where she happened to have some poor relations, who might

help her to find a situation as a servant. Minokichi soon felt charmed by this strange girl; and the more that he

looked at her, the handsomer she appeared to be. He asked her whether she was yet betrothed; and she

answered, laughingly, that she was free. Then, in her turn, she asked Minokichi whether he was married, or

pledge to marry; and he told her that, although he had only a widowed mother to support, the question of an

"honorable daughterinlaw" had not yet been considered, as he was very young... After these confidences,

they walked on for a long while without speaking; but, as the proverb declares, Ki ga areba, me mo kuchi

hodo ni mono wo iu: "When the wish is there, the eyes can say as much as the mouth." By the time they

reached the village, they had become very much pleased with each other; and then Minokichi asked OYuki

to rest awhile at his house. After some shy hesitation, she went there with him; and his mother made her

welcome, and prepared a warm meal for her. OYuki behaved so nicely that Minokichi's mother took a

sudden fancy to her, and persuaded her to delay her journey to Yedo. And the natural end of the matter was

that Yuki never went to Yedo at all. She remained in the house, as an "honorable daughterinlaw."

OYuki proved a very good daughterinlaw. When Minokichi's mother came to die, some five years

later, her last words were words of affection and praise for the wife of her son. And OYuki bore

Minokichi ten children, boys and girls, handsome children all of them, and very fair of skin.

The countryfolk thought OYuki a wonderful person, by nature different from themselves. Most of the

peasantwomen age early; but OYuki, even after having become the mother of ten children, looked as

One night, after the children had gone to sleep, OYuki was sewing by the light of a paper lamp; and

"To see you sewing there, with the light on your face, makes me think of a strange thing that happened when

I was a lad of eighteen. I then saw somebody as beautiful and white as you are now indeed, she was very

Then Minokichi told her about the terrible night in the ferryman's hut, and about the White Woman that

had stooped above him, smiling and whispering, and about the silent death of old Mosaku. And he said:

"Asleep or awake, that was the only time that I saw a being as beautiful as you. Of course, she was not a

human being; and I was afraid of her, very much afraid, but she was so white!... Indeed, I have never

OYuki flung down her sewing, and arose, and bowed above Minokichi where he sat, and shrieked into his

"It was I I I! Yuki it was! And I told you then that I would kill you if you ever said one work about

it!... But for those children asleep there, I would kill you this moment! And now you had better take very,

very good care of them; for if ever they have reason to complain of you, I will treat you as you deserve!"...

Even as she screamed, her voice became thin, like a crying of wind; then she melted into a bright white

mist that spired to the roofbeams, and shuddered away through the smokehold... Never again was she seen.

In the era of Bummei [14691486] there was a young samurai called Tomotada in the service of Hatakeyama

Yoshimune, the Lord of Noto (1). Tomotada was a native of Echizen (2); but at an early age he had been

taken, as page, into the palace of the daimyo of Noto, and had been educated, under the supervision of that

prince, for the profession of arms. As he grew up, he proved himself both a good scholar and a good soldier,

and continued to enjoy the favor of his prince. Being gifted with an amiable character, a winning address, and

When Tomotada was about twenty years old, he was sent upon a private mission to Hosokawa Masamoto, the

great daimyo of Kyoto, a kinsman of Hatakeyama Yoshimune. Having been ordered to journey through

Echizen, the youth requested and obtained permission to pay a visit, on the way, to his widowed mother.

It was the coldest period of the year when he started; and, though mounted upon a powerful horse, he found

himself obliged to proceed slowly. The road which he followed passed through a mountaindistrict where the

settlements were few and far between; and on the second day of his journey, after a weary ride of hours, he

was dismayed to find that he could not reached his intended haltingplace until late in the night. He had

reason to be anxious; for a heavy snowstorm came on, with an intensely cold wind; and the horse showed

signs of exhaustion. But in that trying moment, Tomotada unexpectedly perceived the thatched room of a

cottage on the summit of a near hill, where willowtrees were growing. With difficulty he urged his tired

animal to the dwelling; and he loudly knocked upon the stormdoors, which had been closed against the

wind. An old woman opened them, and cried out compassionately at the sight of the handsome stranger: "Ah,

how pitiful! a young gentleman traveling alone in such weather!... Deign, young master, to enter."

Tomotada dismounted, and after leading his horse to a shed in the rear, entered the cottage, where he saw an

old man and a girl warming themselves by a fire of bamboo splints. They respectfully invited him to

approach the fire; and the old folks then proceeded to warm some ricewine, and to prepare food for the

traveler, whom they ventured to question in regard to his journey. Meanwhile the young girl disappeared

behind a screen. Tomotada had observed, with astonishment, that she was extremely beautiful, though her

attire was of the most wretched kind, and her long, loose hair in disorder. He wondered that so handsome a

"Honored Sir, the next village is far; and the snow is falling thickly. The wind is piercing; and the road is

very bad. Therefore, to proceed further this night would probably be dangerous. Although this hovel is

unworthy of your presence, and although we have not any comfort to offer, perhaps it were safer to remain

Tomotada accepted this humble proposal, secretly glad of the chance thus afforded him to see more of the

young girl. Presently a coarse but ample meal was set before him; and the girl came from behind the screen,

to serve the wine. She was now reclad, in a rough but cleanly robe of homespun; and her long, loose hair had

been neatly combed and smoothed. As she bent forward to fill his cup, Tomotada was amazed to perceive

that she was incomparably more beautiful than any woman whom he had ever before seen; and there was a

grace about her every motion that astonished him. But the elders began to apologize for her, saying: "Sir, our

daughter, Aoyagi, [1] has been brought up here in the mountains, almost alone; and she knows nothing of

gentle service. We pray that you will pardon her stupidity and her ignorance." Tomotada protested that he

deemed himself lucky to be waited upon by so comely a maiden. He could not turn his eyes away from her

though he saw that his admiring gaze made her blush; and he left the wine and food untasted before

him. The mother said: "Kind Sir, we very much hope that you will try to eat and to drink a little, though

our peasantfare is of the worst, as you must have been chilled by that piercing wind." Then, to please the

old folks, Tomotada ate and drank as he could; but the charm of the blushing girl still grew upon him. He

talked with her, and found that her speech was sweet as her face. Brought up in the mountains as she might

have been; but, in that case, her parents must at some time been persons of high degree; for she spoke and

moved like a damsel of rank. Suddenly he addressed her with a poem which was also a question

["Being on my way to pay a visit, I found that which I took to be a flower: therefore here I spend the day...

Why, in the time before dawn, the dawnblush tint should glow that, indeed, I know not."] [2]

[If with my sleeve I hid the faint fair color of the dawning sun, then, perhaps, in the morning my lord will

Then Tomotada knew that she accepted his admiration; and he was scarcely less surprised by the art with

which she had uttered her feelings in verse, than delighted by the assurance which the verses conveyed. He

was now certain that in all this world he could not hope to meet, much less to win, a girl more beautiful and

witty than this rustic maid before him; and a voice in his heart seemed to cry out urgently, "Take the luck that

the gods have put in your way!" In short he was bewitched bewitched to such a degree that, without

further preliminary, he asked the old people to give him their daughter in marriage, telling them, at the

They bowed down before him, with many exclamations of grateful astonishment. But, after some moments of

"Honored master, you are a person of high position, and likely to rise to still higher things. Too great is the

favor that you deign to offer us; indeed, the depth of our gratitude therefor is not to be spoken or measured.

But this girl of ours, being a stupid countrygirl of vulgar birth, with no training or teaching of any sort, it

would be improper to let her become the wife of a noble samurai. Even to speak of such a matter is not

right... But, since you find the girl to your liking, and have condescended to pardon her peasantmanners and

to overlook her great rudeness, we do gladly present her to you, for an humble handmaid. Deign, therefore, to

Ere morning the storm had passed; and day broke through a cloudless east. Even if the sleeve of Aoyagi hid

from her lover's eyes the roseblush of that dawn, he could no longer tarry. But neither could he resign

himself to part with the girl; and, when everything had been prepared for his journey, he thus addressed her

"Though it may seem thankless to ask for more than I have already received, I must again beg you to give me

your daughter for wife. It would be difficult for me to separate from her now; and as she is willing to

accompany me, if you permit, I can take her with me as she is. If you will give her to me, I shall ever cherish

you as parents... And, in the meantime, please to accept this poor acknowledgment of your kindest

So saying, he placed before his humble host a purse of gold ryo. But the old man, after many prostrations,

"Kind master, the gold would be of no use to us; and you will probably have need of it during your long, cold

journey. Here we buy nothing; and we could not spend so much money upon ourselves, even if we wished...

As for the girl, we have already bestowed her as a free gift; she belongs to you: therefore it is not

necessary to ask our leave to take her away. Already she has told us that she hopes to accompany you, and to

remain your servant for as long as you may be willing to endure her presence. We are only too happy to know

that you deign to accept her; and we pray that you will not trouble yourself on our account. In this place we

could not provide her with proper clothing, much less with a dowry. Moreover, being old, we should in

any event have to separate from her before long. Therefore it is very fortunate that you should be willing to

It was in vain that Tomotada tried to persuade the old people to accept a present: he found that they cared

nothing for money. But he saw that they were really anxious to trust their daughter's fate to his hands; and he

therefore decided to take her with him. So he placed her upon his horse, and bade the old folks farewell for

"honored Sir," the father made answer, "it is we, and not you, who have reason for gratitude. We are sure that

[Here, in the Japanese original, there is a queer break in the natural course of the narration, which therefrom

remains curiously inconsistent. Nothing further is said about the mother of Tomotada, or about the parents of

Aoyagi, or about the daimyo of Noto. Evidently the writer wearied of his work at this point, and hurried the

story, very carelessly, to its startling end. I am not able to supply his omissions, or to repair his faults of

construction; but I must venture to put in a few explanatory details, without which the rest of the tale would

not hold together... It appears that Tomotada rashly took Aoyagi with him to Kyoto, and so got into trouble;

...Now a samurai was not allowed to marry without the consent of his lord; and Tomotada could not expect to

obtain this sanction before his mission had been accomplished. He had reason, under such circumstances, to

fear that the beauty of Aoyagi might attract dangerous attention, and that means might be devised of taking

her away from him. In Kyoto he therefore tried to keep her hidden from curious eyes. But a retainer of Lord

Hosokawa one day caught sight of Aoyagi, discovered her relation to Tomotada, and reported the matter to

the daimyo. Thereupon the daimyo a young prince, and fond of pretty faces gave orders that the girl

should be brought to the place; and she was taken thither at once, without ceremony.

Tomotada sorrowed unspeakably; but he knew himself powerless. He was only an humble messenger in the

service of a faroff daimyo; and for the time being he was at the mercy of a much more powerful daimyo,

whose wishes were not to be questioned. Moreover Tomotada knew that he had acted foolishly, that he

had brought about his own misfortune, by entering into a clandestine relation which the code of the military

class condemned. There was now but one hope for him, a desperate hope: that Aoyagi might be able and

willing to escape and to flee with him. After long reflection, he resolved to try to send her a letter. The

attempt would be dangerous, of course: any writing sent to her might find its way to the hands of the daimyo;

and to send a loveletter to anyinmate of the place was an unpardonable offense. But he resolved to dare the

risk; and, in the form of a Chinese poem, he composed a letter which he endeavored to have conveyed to her.

The poem was written with only twentyeight characters. But with those twentyeight characters he was

about to express all the depth of his passion, and to suggest all the pain of his loss: [4]

Ryokuju namida wo tarete rakin wo hitataru; Komon hitotabi irite fukaki koto umi no gotoshi; Kore yori

But the august lord, having one become enamored of her the depth of his longing is like the depth of the

Therefore it is only I that am left forlorn, only I that am left to wander along.]

On the evening of the day after this poem had been sent, Tomotada was summoned to appear before the Lord

Hosokawa. The youth at once suspected that his confidence had been betrayed; and he could not hope, if his

letter had been seen by the daimyo, to escape the severest penalty. "Now he will order my death," thought

Tomotada; "but I do not care to live unless Aoyagi be restored to me. Besides, if the deathsentence be

passed, I can at least try to kill Hosokawa." He slipped his swords into his girdle, and hastened to the palace.

On entering the presenceroom he saw the Lord Hosokawa seated upon the dais, surrounded by samurai of

high rank, in caps and robes of ceremony. All were silent as statues; and while Tomotada advanced to make

obeisance, the hush seemed to his sinister and heavy, like the stillness before a storm. But Hosokawa

suddenly descended from the dais, and, while taking the youth by the arm, began to repeat the words of the

poem: "Koshi oson gojin wo ou."... And Tomotada, looking up, saw kindly tears in the prince's eyes.

"Because you love each other so much, I have taken it upon myself to authorize your marriage, in lieu of my

kinsman, the Lord of Noto; and your wedding shall now be celebrated before me. The guests are

At a signal from the lord, the slidingscreens concealing a further apartment were pushed open; and

Tomotada saw there many dignitaries of the court, assembled for the ceremony, and Aoyagi awaiting him in

brides' apparel... Thus was she given back to him; and the wedding was joyous and splendid; and

precious gifts were made to the young couple by the prince, and by the members of his household.

For five happy years, after that wedding, Tomotada and Aoyagi dwelt together. But one morning Aoyagi,

while talking with her husband about some household matter, suddenly uttered a great cry of pain, and then

became very white and still. After a few moments she said, in a feeble voice: "Pardon me for thus rudely

crying out but the paid was so sudden!... My dear husband, our union must have been brought about

through some Karmarelation in a former state of existence; and that happy relation, I think, will bring us

again together in more than one life to come. But for this present existence of ours, the relation is now

ended; we are about to be separated. Repeat for me, I beseech you, the Nembutsuprayer, because I am

"Oh! what strange wild fancies!" cried the startled husband, "you are only a little unwell, my dear one!...

"No, no!" she responded "I am dying! I do not imagine it; I know!... And it were needless now, my

dear husband, to hide the truth from you any longer: I am not a human being. The soul of a tree is my

soul; the heart of a tree is my heart; the sap of the willow is my life. And some one, at this cruel

moment, is cutting down my tree; that is why I must die!... Even to weep were now beyond my

With another cry of pain she turned aside her beautiful head, and tried to hide her face behind her sleeve. But

almost in the same moment her whole form appeared to collapse in the strangest way, and to sank down,

down, down level with the floor. Tomotada had spring to support her; but there was nothing to support!

There lay on the matting only the empty robes of the fair creature and the ornaments that she had worn in her

Tomotada shaved his head, took the Buddhist vows, and became an itinerant priest. He traveled through all

the provinces of the empire; and, at holy places which he visited, he offered up prayers for the soul of

Aoyagi. Reaching Echizen, in the course of his pilgrimage, he sought the home of the parents of his beloved.

But when he arrived at the lonely place among the hills, where their dwelling had been, he found that the

cottage had disappeared. There was nothing to mark even the spot where it had stood, except the stumps of

three willows two old trees and one young tree that had been cut down long before his arrival.

Beside the stumps of those willowtrees he erected a memorial tomb, inscribed with divers holy texts; and he

there performed many Buddhist services on behalf of the spirits of Aoyagi and of her parents.

In Wakegori, a district of the province of Iyo (1), there is a very ancient and famous cherrytree, called

Jiurokuzakura, or "the Cherrytree of the Sixteenth Day," because it blooms every year upon the sixteenth

day of the first month (by the old lunar calendar), and only upon that day. Thus the time of its flowering is

the Period of Great Cold, though the natural habit of a cherrytree is to wait for the spring season before

venturing to blossom. But the Jiurokuzakura blossoms with a life that is not or, at least, that was not

He was a samurai of Iyo; and the tree grew in his garden; and it used to flower at the usual time, that is to

say, about the end of March or the beginning of April. He had played under that tree when he was a child;

and his parents and grandparents and ancestors had hung to its blossoming branches, season after season for

more than a hundred years, bright strips of colored paper inscribed with poems of praise. He himself became

very old, outliving all his children; and there was nothing in the world left for him to live except that tree.

Exceedingly the old man sorrowed for his tree. Then kind neighbors found for him a young and beautiful

cherrytree, and planted it in his garden, hoping thus to comfort him. And he thanked them, and pretended

to be glad. But really his heart was full of pain; for he had loved the old tree so well that nothing could have

At last there came to him a happy thought: he remembered a way by which the perishing tree might be saved.

(It was the sixteenth day of the first month.) Along he went into his garden, and bowed down before the

withered tree, and spoke to it, saying: "Now deign, I beseech you, once more to bloom, because I am going

to die in your stead." (For it is believed that one can really give away one's life to another person, or to a

creature or even to a tree, by the favor of the gods; and thus to transfer one's life is expressed by the term

migawari ni tatsu, "to act as a substitute.") Then under that tree he spread a white cloth, and divers coverings,

and sat down upon the coverings, and performed harakiri after the fashion of a samurai. And the ghost of

And every year it still blooms on the sixteenth day of the first month, in the season of snow.

In the district called Toichi of Yamato Province, (1) there used to live a goshi named Miyata Akinosuke...

[Here I must tell you that in Japanese feudal times there was a privileged class of soldierfarmers,

freeholders, corresponding to the class of yeomen in England; and these were called goshi.]

In Akinosuke's garden there was a great and ancient cedartree, under which he was wont to rest on sultry

days. One very warm afternoon he was sitting under this tree with two of his friends, fellowgoshi, chatting

and drinking wine, when he felt all of a sudden very drowsy, so drowsy that he begged his friends to

excuse him for taking a nap in their presence. Then he lay down at the foot of the tree, and dreamed this

He thought that as he was lying there in his garden, he saw a procession, like the train of some great daimyo

descending a hill near by, and that he got up to look at it. A very grand procession it proved to be, more

imposing than anything of the kind which he had ever seen before; and it was advancing toward his dwelling.

He observed in the van of it a number of young men richly appareled, who were drawing a great lacquered

palacecarriage, or goshoguruma, hung with bright blue silk. When the procession arrived within a short

distance of the house it halted; and a richly dressed man evidently a person of rank advanced from it,

"Honored Sir, you see before you a kerai [vassal] of the Kokuo of Tokoyo. [1] My master, the King,

commands me to greet you in his august name, and to place myself wholly at your disposal. He also bids me

inform you that he augustly desires your presence at the palace. Be therefore pleased immediately to enter

Upon hearing these words Akinosuke wanted to make some fitting reply; but he was too much astonished and

embarrassed for speech; and in the same moment his will seemed to melt away from him, so that he could

only do as the kerai bade him. He entered the carriage; the kerai took a place beside him, and made a signal;

the drawers, seizing the silken ropes, turned the great vehicle southward; and the journey began.

In a very short time, to Akinosuke's amazement, the carriage stopped in front of a huge twostoried gateway

(romon), of a Chinese style, which he had never before seen. Here the kerai dismounted, saying, "I go to

announced the honorable arrival," and he disappeared. After some little waiting, Akinosuke saw two

noblelooking men, wearing robes of purple silk and high caps of the form indicating lofty rank, come from

the gateway. These, after having respectfully saluted him, helped him to descend from the carriage, and led

him through the great gate and across a vast garden, to the entrance of a palace whose front appeared to

extend, west and east, to a distance of miles. Akinosuke was then shown into a receptionroom of wonderful

size and splendor. His guides conducted him to the place of honor, and respectfully seated themselves apart;

while servingmaids, in costume of ceremony, brought refreshments. When Akinosuke had partaken of the

refreshments, the two purplerobed attendants bowed low before him, and addressed him in the following

"It is now our honorable duty to inform you... as to the reason of your having been summoned hither... Our

master, the King, augustly desires that you become his soninlaw;... and it is his wish and command that

you shall wed this very day... the August Princess, his maidendaughter... We shall soon conduct you to the

presencechamber... where His Augustness even now is waiting to receive you... But it will be necessary that

Having thus spoken, the attendants rose together, and proceeded to an alcove containing a great chest of gold

lacquer. They opened the chest, and took from it various roes and girdles of rich material, and a kamuri, or

regal headdress. With these they attired Akinosuke as befitted a princely bridegroom; and he was then

conducted to the presenceroom, where he saw the Kokuo of Tokoyo seated upon the daiza, [3] wearing a

high black cap of state, and robed in robes of yellow silk. Before the daiza, to left and right, a multitude of

dignitaries sat in rank, motionless and splendid as images in a temple; and Akinosuke, advancing into their

midst, saluted the king with the triple prostration of usage. The king greeted him with gracious words, and

"You have already been informed as to the reason of your having been summoned to Our presence. We have

decided that you shall become the adopted husband of Our only daughter; and the wedding ceremony shall

As the king finished speaking, a sound of joyful music was heard; and a long train of beautiful court ladies

advanced from behind a curtain to conduct Akinosuke to the room in which he bride awaited him.

The room was immense; but it could scarcely contain the multitude of guests assembled to witness the

wedding ceremony. All bowed down before Akinosuke as he took his place, facing the King's daughter, on

the kneelingcushion prepared for him. As a maiden of heaven the bride appeared to be; and her robes were

Afterwards the pair were conducted to a suite of apartments that had been prepared for them in another

portion of the palace; and there they received the congratulations of many noble persons, and wedding gifts

Some days later Akinosuke was again summoned to the throneroom. On this occasion he was received even

In the southwestern part of Our dominion there is an island called Raishu. We have now appointed you

Governor of that island. You will find the people loyal and docile; but their laws have not yet been brought

into proper accord with the laws of Tokoyo; and their customs have not been properly regulated. We entrust

you with the duty of improving their social condition as far as may be possible; and We desire that you shall

rule them with kindness and wisdom. All preparations necessary for your journey to Raishu have already

So Akinosuke and his bride departed from the palace of Tokoyo, accompanied to the shore by a great escort

of nobles and officials; and they embarked upon a ship of state provided by the king. And with favoring

winds they safety sailed to Raishu, and found the good people of that island assembled upon the beach to

Akinosuke entered at once upon his new duties; and they did not prove to be hard. During the first three years

of his governorship he was occupied chiefly with the framing and the enactment of laws; but he had wise

counselors to help him, and he never found the work unpleasant. When it was all finished, he had no active

duties to perform, beyond attending the rites and ceremonies ordained by ancient custom. The country was so

healthy and so fertile that sickness and want were unknown; and the people were so good that no laws were

ever broken. And Akinosuke dwelt and ruled in Raishu for twenty years more, making in all twentythree

But in the twentyfourth year of his governorship, a great misfortune came upon him; for his wife, who had

borne him seven children, five boys and two girls, fell sick and died. She was buried, with high pomp,

on the summit of a beautiful hill in the district of Hanryoko; and a monument, exceedingly splendid, was

placed upon her grave. But Akinosuke felt such grief at her death that he no longer cared to live.

Now when the legal period of mourning was over, there came to Raishu, from the Tokoyo palace, a shisha, or

royal messenger. The shisha delivered to Akinosuke a message of condolence, and then said to him:

"These are the words which our august master, the King of Tokoyo, commands that I repeat to you: 'We will

now send you back to your own people and country. As for the seven children, they are the grandsons and

granddaughters of the King, and shall be fitly cared for. Do not, therefore, allow you mind to be troubled

On receiving this mandate, Akinosuke submissively prepared for his departure. When all his affairs had been

settled, and the ceremony of bidding farewell to his counselors and trusted officials had been concluded, he

was escorted with much honor to the port. There he embarked upon the ship sent for him; and the ship sailed

out into the blue sea, under the blue sky; and the shape of the island of Raishu itself turned blue, and then

turned grey, and then vanished forever... And Akinosuke suddenly awoke under the cedartree in his own

For a moment he was stupefied and dazed. But he perceived his two friends still seated near him, drinking

"Akinosuke must have been dreaming," one of them exclaimed, with a laugh. "What did you see, Akinosuke,

Then Akinosuke told his dream, that dream of threeandtwenty years' sojourn in the realm of Tokoyo, in

the island of Raishu; and they were astonished, because he had really slept for no more than a few minutes.

"Indeed, you saw strange things. We also saw something strange while you were napping. A little yellow

butterfly was fluttering over your face for a moment or two; and we watched it. Then it alighted on the

ground beside you, close to the tree; and almost as soon as it alighted there, a big, big ant came out of a hole

and seized it and pulling it down into the hole. Just before you woke up, we saw that very butterfly come out

of the hole again, and flutter over your face as before. And then it suddenly disappeared: we do not know

"Perhaps it was Akinosuke's soul," the other goshi said; "certainly I thought I saw it fly into his mouth...

But, even if that butterfly was Akinosuke's soul, the fact would not explain his dream."

"The ants might explain it," returned the first speaker. "Ants are queer beings possibly goblins... Anyhow,

"Let us look!" cried Akinosuke, greatly moved by this suggestion. And he went for a spade.

The ground about and beneath the cedartree proved to have been excavated, in a most surprising way, by a

prodigious colony of ants. The ants had furthermore built inside their excavations; and their tiny

constructions of straw, clay, and stems bore an odd resemblance to miniature towns. In the middle of a

structure considerably larger than the rest there was a marvelous swarming of small ants around the body of

"Why, there is the King of my dream!" cried Akinosuke; "and there is the palace of Tokoyo!... How

extraordinary!... Raishu ought to lie somewhere southwest of it to the left of that big root... Yes! here it

is!... How very strange! Now I am sure that I can find the mountain of Hanryoko, and the grave of the

In the wreck of the nest he searched and searched, and at last discovered a tiny mound, on the top of which

was fixed a waterworn pebble, in shape resembling a Buddhist monument. Underneath it he found

His name was Riki, signifying Strength; but the people called him RikitheSimple, or RikitheFool,

"RikiBaka," because he had been born into perpetual childhood. For the same reason they were kind to

him, even when he set a house on fire by putting a lighted match to a mosquitocurtain, and clapped his

hands for joy to see the blaze. At sixteen years he was a tall, strong lad; but in mind he remained always at

the happy age of two, and therefore continued to play with very small children. The bigger children of the

neighborhood, from four to seven years old, did not care to play with him, because he could not learn their

songs and games. His favorite toy was a broomstick, which he used as a hobbyhorse; and for hours at a time

he would ride on that broomstick, up and down the slope in front of my house, with amazing peals of

laughter. But at last he became troublesome by reason of his noise; and I had to tell him that he must find

another playground. He bowed submissively, and then went off, sorrowfully trailing his broomstick behind

him. Gentle at all times, and perfectly harmless if allowed no chance to play with fire, he seldom gave

anybody cause for complaint. His relation to the life of our street was scarcely more than that of a dog or a

chicken; and when he finally disappeared, I did not miss him. Months and months passed by before anything

"What has become of Riki?" I then asked the old woodcutter who supplies our neighborhood with fuel. I

"RikiBaka?" answered the old man. "Ah, Riki is dead poor fellow!... Yes, he died nearly a year ago, very

suddenly; the doctors said that he had some disease of the brain. And there is a strange story now about that

"When Riki died, his mother wrote his name, 'RikiBaka,' in the palm of his left hand, putting 'Riki' in the

Chinese character, and 'Baka' in kana (1). And she repeated many prayers for him, prayers that he might be

"Now, about three months ago, in the honorable residence of NanigashiSama (2), in Kojimachi (3), a boy

was born with characters on the palm of his left hand; and the characters were quite plain to read,

"So the people of that house knew that the birth must have happened in answer to somebody's prayer; and

they caused inquiry to be made everywhere. At least a vegetableseller brought word to them that there used

to be a simple lad, called RikiBaka, living in the Ushigome quarter, and that he had died during the last

"Those servants found the mother of Riki, and told her what had happened; and she was glad exceedingly

for that Nanigashi house is a very rich and famous house. But the servants said that the family of

NanigashiSama were very angry about the word 'Baka' on the child's hand. 'And where is your Riki buried?'

the servants asked. 'He is buried in the cemetery of Zendoji,' she told them. 'Please to give us some of the clay

"So she went with them to the temple Zendoji, and showed them Riki's grave; and they took some of the

graveclay away with them, wrapped up in a furoshiki [1].... They gave Riki's mother some money, ten

"Well," the old man answered, "you know that it would not do to let the child grow up with that name on his

hand. And there is no other means of removing characters that come in that way upon the body of a child:

you must rub the skin with clay taken from the grave of the body of the former birth."...

On the wooded hill behind the house Robert and I are looking for fairyrings. Robert is eight years old,

comely, and very wise; I am a little more than seven, and I reverence Robert. It is a glowing glorious

We do not find any fairyrings; but we find a great many pinecones in the high grass... I tell Robert the old

Welsh story of the man who went to sleep, unawares, inside a fairyring, and so disappeared for seven years,

and would never eat or speak after his friends had delivered him from the enchantment.

This revelation leaves me dumb with astonishment and awe... But Robert suddenly cries out:

And down the hill we run to hear the harper... But what a harper! Not like the hoary minstrels of the

picturebooks. A swarthy, sturdy, unkempt vagabond, with black bold eyes under scowling black brows.

I feel too much disappointed to make any remarks. The harper poses his harp a huge instrument upon

our doorstep, sets all the strong ringing with a sweep of his grimy fingers, clears his throat with a sort of

Believe me, if all those endearing young charms, Which I gaze on so fondly today...

The accent, the attitude, the voice, all fill me with repulsion unutterable, shock me with a new sensation of

formidable vulgarity. I want to cry out loud, "You have no right to sing that song!" For I have heard it sung

by the lips of the dearest and fairest being in my little world; and that this rude, coarse man should are to

sing it vexes me like a mockery, angers me like an insolence. But only for a moment!... With the utterance

of the syllables "today," that deep, grim voice suddenly breaks into a quivering tenderness indescribable;

then, marvelously changing, it mellows into tones sonorous and rich as the bass of a great organ, while a

sensation unlike anything ever felt before takes me by the throat... What witchcraft has he learned? what

secret has he found this scowling man of the road?... Oh! is there anybody else in the whole world who

can sing like that?... And the form of the singer flickers and dims; and the house, and the lawn, and all

visible shapes of things tremble and swim before me. Yet instinctively I fear that man; I almost hate him;

and I feel myself flushing with anger and shame because of his power to move me thus...

"He made you cry," Robert compassionately observes, to my further confusion, as the harper strides away,

richer by a gift of sixpence taken without thanks... "But I think he must be a gipsy. Gipsies are bad people

We climb again to the pines, and there squat down upon the sunflecked grass, and look over town and sea.

But we do not play as before: the spell of the wizard is strong upon us both... "Perhaps he is a goblin," I

venture at last, "or a fairy?" "No," says Robert, "only a gipsy. But that is nearly as bad. They steal children,

"What shall we do if he comes up here?" I gasp, in sudden terror at the lonesomeness of our situation.

[Only yesterday, near the village of Takata, I noticed a flower which the Japanese call by nearly the same

name as we do: Himawari, "The Sunwardturning;" and over the space of forty years there thrilled back

As the Sunflower turns on her god, when he sets, The same look that she turned when he rose.

Again I saw the sunflecked shadows on that far Welsh hill; and Robert for a moment again stood beside me,

with his girl's face and his curls of gold. We were looking for fairyrings... But all that existed of the real

Robert must long ago have suffered a seachange into something rich and strange... Greater love hath no man

Blue vision of depth lost in height, sea and sky interblending through luminous haze. The day is of spring,

Only sky and sea, one azure enormity... In the fore, ripples are catching a silvery light, and threads of foam

are swirling. But a little further off no motion is visible, nor anything save color: dim warm blue of water

widening away to melt into blue of air. Horizon there is none: only distance soaring into space, infinite

concavity hollowing before you, and hugely arching above you, the color deepening with the height. But

far in the midwayblue there hangs a faint, faint vision of palace towers, with high roofs horned and curved

like moons, some shadowing of splendor strange and old, illumined by a sunshine soft as memory.

...What I have thus been trying to describe is a kakemono, that is to say, a Japanese painting on silk,

suspended to the wall of my alcove; and the name of it is Shinkiro, which signifies "Mirage." But the

shapes of the mirage are unmistakable. Those are the glimmering portals of Horai the blest; and those are the

moony roofs of the Palace of the DragonKing; and the fashion of them (though limned by a Japanese

brush of today) is the fashion of things Chinese, twentyone hundred years ago...

In Horai there is neither death nor pain; and there is no winter. The flowers in that place never fade, and the

fruits never fail; and if a man taste of those fruits even but once, he can never again feel thirst or hunger. In

Horai grow the enchanted plants Sorinshi, and Rikugoaoi, and Bankonto, which heal all manner of

sickness; and there grows also the magical grass Yoshinshi, that quickens the dead; and the magical

grass is watered by a fairy water of which a single drink confers perpetual youth. The people of Horai eat

their rice out of very, very small bowls; but the rice never diminishes within those bowls, however much

of it be eaten, until the eater desires no more. And the people of Horai drink their wine out of very, very

small cups; but no man can empty one of those cups, however stoutly he may drink, until there comes

All this and more is told in the legends of the time of the Shin dynasty. But that the people who wrote down

those legends ever saw Horai, even in a mirage, is not believable. For really there are no enchanted fruits

which leave the eater forever satisfied, nor any magical grass which revives the dead, nor any fountain

of fairy water, nor any bowls which never lack rice, nor any cups which never lack wine. It is not true

that sorrow and death never enter Horai; neither is it true that there is not any winter. The winter in Horai

is cold; and winds then bite to the bone; and the heaping of snow is monstrous on the roofs of the

Nevertheless there are wonderful things in Horai; and the most wonderful of all has not been mentioned by

any Chinese writer. I mean the atmosphere of Horai. It is an atmosphere peculiar to the place; and, because of

it, the sunshine in Horai is whiter than any other sunshine, a milky light that never dazzles,

astonishingly clear, but very soft. This atmosphere is not of our human period: it is enormously old, so old

that I feel afraid when I try to think how old it is; and it is not a mixture of nitrogen and oxygen. It is not

made of air at all, but of ghost, the substance of quintillions of quintillions of generations of souls blended

into one immense translucency, souls of people who thought in ways never resembling our ways.

Whatever mortal man inhales that atmosphere, he takes into his blood the thrilling of these spirits; and they

change the sense within him, reshaping his notions of Space and Time, so that he can see only as they

used to see, and feel only as they used to feel, and think only as they used to think. Soft as sleep are these

Because in Horai there is no knowledge of great evil, the hearts of the people never grow old. And,

by reason of being always young in heart, the people of Horai smile from birth until death except

when the Gods send sorrow among them; and faces then are veiled until the sorrow goes away. All

folk in Horai love and trust each other, as if all were members of a single household; and the

speech of the women is like birdsong, because the hearts of them are light as the souls of birds;

and the swaying of the sleeves of the maidens at play seems a flutter of wide, soft wings. In Horai

nothing is hidden but grief, because there is no reason for shame; and nothing is locked away,

because there could not be any theft; and by night as well as by day all doors remain unbarred,

because there is no reason for fear. And because the people are fairies though mortal all things

in Horai, except the Palace of the DragonKing, are small and quaint and queer; and these

fairyfolk do really eat their rice out of very, very small bowls, and drink their wine out of very, very

Much of this seeming would be due to the inhalation of that ghostly atmosphere but not all. For

the spell wrought by the dead is only the charm of an Ideal, the glamour of an ancient hope; and

something of that hope has found fulfillment in many hearts , in the simple beauty of unselfish

Evil winds from the West are blowing over Horai; and the magical atmosphere, alas! is shrinking

away before them. It lingers now in patches only, and bands, like those long bright bands of cloud

that train across the landscapes of Japanese painters. Under these shreds of the elfish vapor you still

can find Horai but not everywhere... Remember that Horai is also called Shinkiro, which signifies

Mirage, the Vision of the Intangible. And the Vision is fading, never again to appear save in

Would that I could hope for the luck of that Chinese scholar known to Japanese literature as "Rosan"! For he

was beloved by two spiritmaidens, celestial sisters, who every ten days came to visit him and to tell him

stories about butterflies. Now there are marvelous Chinese stories about butterflies ghostly stories; and I

want to know them. But never shall I be able to read Chinese, nor even Japanese; and the little Japanese

poetry that I manage, with exceeding difficulty, to translate, contains so many allusions to Chinese stories of

butterflies that I am tormented with the torment of Tantalus... And, of course, no spiritmaidens will even

I want to know, for example, the whole story of that Chinese maiden whom the butterflies took to be a

flower, and followed in multitude, so fragrant and so fair was she. Also I should like to know something

more concerning the butterflies of the Emperor Genso, or Ming Hwang, who made them choose his loves for

him... He used to hold wineparties in his amazing garden; and ladies of exceeding beauty were in

attendance; and caged butterflies, se free among them, would fly to the fairest; and then, upon that fairest the

Imperial favor was bestowed. But after Genso Kotei had seen Yokihi (whom the Chinese call

YangKweiFei), he would not suffer the butterflies to choose for him, which was unlucky, as Yokihi got

him into serious trouble... Again, I should like to know more about the experience of that Chinese scholar,

celebrated in Japan under the name Soshu, who dreamed that he was a butterfly, and had all the sensations of

a butterfly in that dream. For his spirit had really been wandering about in the shape of a butterfly; and, when

he awoke, the memories and the feelings of butterfly existence remained so vivid in his mind that he could

not act like a human being... Finally I should like to know the text of a certain Chinese official recognition of

Most of the Japanese literature about butterflies, excepting some poetry, appears to be of Chinese origin; and

even that old national aesthetic feeling on the subject, which found such delightful expression in Japanese art

and song and custom, may have been first developed under Chinese teaching. Chinese precedent doubtless

explains why Japanese poets and painters chose so often for their geimyo, or professional appellations, such

names as Chomu ("ButterflyDream)," Icho ("Solitary Butterfly)," etc. And even to this day such geimyo as

Chohana ("ButterflyBlossom"), Chokichi ("ButterflyLuck"), or Chonosuke ("ButterflyHelp"), are

affected by dancinggirls. Besides artistic names having reference to butterflies, there are still in use real

personal names (yobina) of this kind, such as Kocho, or Cho, meaning "Butterfly." They are borne by

women only, as a rule, though there are some strange exceptions... And here I may mention that, in the

province of Mutsu, there still exists the curious old custom of calling the youngest daughter in a family

Tekona, which quaint word, obsolete elsewhere, signifies in Mutsu dialect a butterfly. In classic time this

It is possible also that some weird Japanese beliefs about butterflies are of Chinese derivation; but these

beliefs might be older than China herself. The most interesting one, I think, is that the soul of a living person

may wander about in the form of a butterfly. Some pretty fancies have been evolved out of this belief, such

as the notion that if a butterfly enters your guestroom and perches behind the bamboo screen, the person

whom you most love is coming to see you. That a butterfly may be the spirit of somebody is not a reason for

being afraid of it. Nevertheless there are times when even butterflies can inspire fear by appearing in

prodigious numbers; and Japanese history records such an event. When TairanoMasakado was secretly

preparing for his famous revolt, there appeared in Kyoto so vast a swarm of butterflies that the people were

frightened, thinking the apparition to be a portent of coming evil... Perhaps those butterflies were supposed

to be the spirits of the thousands doomed to perish in battle, and agitated on the eve of war by some

However, in Japanese belief, a butterfly may be the soul of a dead person as well as of a living person. Indeed

it is a custom of souls to take butterflyshape in order to announce the fact of their final departure from the

body; and for this reason any butterfly which enters a house ought to be kindly treated.

To this belief, and to queer fancies connected with it, there are many allusions in popular drama. For

example, there is a wellknown play called TondederuKochonoKanzashi; or, "The Flying Hairpin of

Kocho." Kocho is a beautiful person who kills herself because of false accusations and cruel treatment. Her

wouldbe avenger long seeks in vain for the author of the wrong. But at last the dead woman's hairpin turns

into a butterfly, and serves as a guide to vengeance by hovering above the place where the villain is hiding.

Of course those big paper butterflies (ocho and mecho) which figure at weddings must not be

thought of as having any ghostly signification. As emblems they only express the joy of living union,

and the hope that the newly married couple may pass through life together as a pair of butterflies flit

lightly through some pleasant garden, now hovering upward, now downward, but never widely

A small selection of hokku (1) on butterflies will help to illustrate Japanese interest in the aesthetic side of the

subject. Some are pictures only, tiny colorsketches made with seventeen syllables; some are nothing

more than pretty fancies, or graceful suggestions; but the reader will find variety. Probably he will not care

much for the verses in themselves. The taste for Japanese poetry of the epigrammatic sort is a taste that must

be slowly acquired; and it is only by degrees, after patient study, that the possibilities of such composition

can be fairly estimated. Hasty criticism has declared that to put forward any serious claim on behalf of

seventeensyllable poems "would be absurd." But what, then, of Crashaw's famous line upon the miracle at

Only fourteen syllables and immortality. Now with seventeen Japanese syllables things quite as wonderful

indeed, much more wonderful have been done, not once or twice, but probably a thousand times...

However, there is nothing wonderful in the following hokku, which have been selected for more than literary

[Even though it did not appear to be a windy day, [6] the fluttering of the butterflies !]

[When I saw the fallen flower return to the branch lo! it was only a butterfly! [7]]

[How the butterfly strives to compete in lightness with the falling flowers! [8]]

[See that butterfly on the woman's path, now fluttering behind her, now before!]

[Poor autumn butterfly! when left without a comrade (of its own race), it follows after man (or "a

[Ah, the butterfly! Even when chased, it never has the air of being in a hurry.]

[As for butterflies, they all have the appearance of being about seventeen or eighteen years old.[9]]

[How the butterfly sports, just as if there were no enmity (or "envy") in this world!]

[Ah, the butterfly! it sports about as if it had nothing more to desire in this present state of existence.]

[Having found it difficult indeed to perch upon the (foam) blossoms of the waves, alas for the butterfly!]

[If (in our next existence) we be born into the state of butterflies upon the moor, then perchance we may be

[Approaching they dance; but when the two meet at last they are very quiet, the butterflies!]

Besides these specimens of poetry about butterflies, I have one queer example to offer of Japanese prose

literature on the same topic. The original, of which I have attempted only a free translation, can be found in

the curious old book MushiIsame ("InsectAdmonitions"); and it assumes the form of a discourse to a

butterfly. But it is really a didactic allegory, suggesting the moral significance of a social rise and fall:

"Now, under the sun of spring, the winds are gentle, and flowers pinkly bloom, and grasses are soft, and the

hearts of people are glad. Butterflies everywhere flutter joyously: so many persons now compose Chinese

"And this season, O Butterfly, is indeed the season of your bright prosperity: so comely you now are that in

the whole world there is nothing more comely. For that reason all other insects admire and envy you; there

is not among them even one that does not envy you. Nor do insects alone regard you with envy: men also

both envy and admire you. Soshu of China, in a dream, assumed your shape; Sakoku of Japan, after dying,

took your form, and therein made ghostly apparition. Nor is the envy that you inspire shared only by insects

and mankind: even things without soul change their form into yours; witness the barleygrass, which turns

"And therefore you are lifted up with pride, and think to yourself: 'In all this world there is nothing superior

to me!' Ah! I can very well guess what is in your heart: you are too much satisfied with your own person.

That is why you let yourself be blown thus lightly about by every wind; that is why you never remain

still, always, always thinking, 'In the whole world there is no one so fortunate as I.'

"But now try to think a little about your own personal history. It is worth recalling; for there is a vulgar side

to it. How a vulgar side? Well, for a considerable time after you were born, you had no such reason for

rejoicing in your form. You were then a mere cabbageinsect, a hairy worm; and you were so poor that you

could not afford even one robe to cover your nakedness; and your appearance was altogether disgusting.

Everybody in those days hated the sight of you. Indeed you had good reason to be ashamed of yourself; and

so ashamed you were that you collected old twigs and rubbish to hide in, and you made a hidingnest, and

hung it to a branch, and then everybody cried out to you, 'Raincoat Insect!' (Minomushi.) [14] And

during that period of your life, your sins were grievous. Among the tender green leaves of beautiful

cherrytrees you and your fellows assembled, and there made ugliness extraordinary; and the expectant eyes

of the people, who came from far away to admire the beauty of those cherrytrees, were hurt by the sight of

you. And of things even more hateful than this you were guilty. You knew that poor, poor men and women

had been cultivating daikon (2) in their fields, toiling under the hot sun till their hearts were filled with

bitterness by reason of having to care for that daikon; and you persuaded your companions to go with you,

and to gather upon the leaves of that daikon, and on the leaves of other vegetables planted by those poor

people. Out of your greediness you ravaged those leaves, and gnawed them into all shapes of ugliness,

caring nothing for the trouble of those poor folk... Yes, such a creature you were, and such were your doings.

"And now that you have a comely form, you despise your old comrades, the insects; and, whenever you

happen to meet any of them, you pretend not to know them [literally, 'You make an Idon'tknow face'].

Now you want to have none but wealthy and exalted people for friends... Ah! You have forgotten the old

"It is true that many people have forgotten your past, and are charmed by the sight of your present graceful

shape and white wings, and write Chinese verses and Japanese verses about you. The highborn damsel, who

could not bear even to look at you in your former shape, now gazes at you with delight, and wants you to

perch upon her hairpin, and holds out her dainty fan in the hope that you will light upon it. But this reminds

"In the time of the Emperor Genso, the Imperial Palace contained hundreds and thousands of beautiful

ladies, so many, indeed, that it would have been difficult for any man to decide which among them was the

loveliest. So all of those beautiful persons were assembled together in one place; and you were set free to fly

among them; and it was decreed that the damsel upon whose hairpin you perched should be augustly

summoned to the Imperial Chamber. In that time there could not be more than one Empress which was a

good law; but, because of you, the Emperor Genso did great mischief in the land. For your mind is light and

frivolous; and although among so many beautiful women there must have been some persons of pure heart,

you would look for nothing but beauty, and so betook yourself to the person most beautiful in outward

appearance. Therefore many of the female attendants ceased altogether to think about the right way of

women, and began to study how to make themselves appear splendid in the eyes of men. And the end of it

was that the Emperor Genso died a pitiful and painful death all because of your light and trifling mind.

Indeed, your real character can easily be seen from your conduct in other matters. There are trees, for

example, such as the evergreenoak and the pine, whose leaves do not fade and fall, but remain always

green; these are trees of firm heart, trees of solid character. But you say that they are stiff and formal; and

you hate the sight of them, and never pay them a visit. Only to the cherrytree, and the kaido [15], and the

peony, and the yellow rose you go: those you like because they have showy flowers, and you try only to

please them. Such conduct, let me assure you, is very unbecoming. Those trees certainly have handsome

flowers; but hungersatisfying fruits they have not; and they are grateful to those only who are fond of luxury

and show. And that is just the reason why they are pleased by your fluttering wings and delicate shape;

"Now, in this spring season, while you sportively dance through the gardens of the wealthy, or hover among

the beautiful alleys of cherrytrees in blossom, you say to yourself: 'Nobody in the world has such pleasure

as I, or such excellent friends. And, in spite of all that people may say, I most love the peony, and the

golden yellow rose is my own darling, and I will obey her every least behest; for that is my pride and my

delight.'... So you say. But the opulent and elegant season of flowers is very short: soon they will fade and

fall. Then, in the time of summer heat, there will be green leaves only; and presently the winds of autumn will

blow, when even the leaves themselves will shower down like rain, parariparari. And your fate will then be

as the fate of the unlucky in the proverb, Tanomi ki no shita ni ame furu [Even through the tree upon which I

relied for shelter the rain leaks down]. For you will seek out your old friend, the rootcutting insect, the grub,

and beg him to let you return into your oldtime hole; but now having wings, you will not be able to enter

the hole because of them, and you will not be able to shelter your body anywhere between heaven and earth,

and all the moorgrass will then have withered, and you will not have even one drop of dew with which to

moisten your tongue, and there will be nothing left for you to do but to lie down and die. all because of

Most of the Japanese stories about butterflies appear, as I have said, to be of Chinese origin. But I have one

which is probably indigenous; and it seems to me worth telling for the benefit of persons who believe there is

Behind the cemetery of the temple of Sozanji, in the suburbs of the capital, there long stood a solitary cottage,

occupied by an old man named Takahama. He was liked in the neighborhood, by reason of his amiable ways;

but almost everybody supposed him to be a little mad. Unless a man take the Buddhist vows, he is expected

to marry, and to bring up a family. But Takahama did not belong to the religious life; and he could not be

persuaded to marry. Neither had he ever been known to enter into a loverelation with any woman. For more

One summer he fell sick, and knew that he had not long to live. He then sent for his sisterinlaw, a widow,

and for her only son, a lad of about twenty years old, to whom he was much attached. Both promptly

One sultry afternoon, while the widow and her son were watching at his bedside, Takahama fell asleep. At

the same moment a very large white butterfly entered the room, and perched upon the sick man's pillow. The

nephew drove it away with a fan; but it returned immediately to the pillow, and was again driven away, only

to come back a third time. Then the nephew chased it into the garden, and across the garden, through an open

gate, into the cemetery of the neighboring temple. But it continued to flutter before him as if unwilling to be

driven further, and acted so queerly that he began to wonder whether it was really a butterfly, or a ma [16].

He again chased it, and followed it far into the cemetery, until he saw it fly against a tomb, a woman's

tomb. There it unaccountably disappeared; and he searched for it in vain. He then examined the monument. It

bore the personal name "Akiko," (3) together with an unfamiliar family name, and an inscription stating that

Akiko had died at the age of eighteen. Apparently the tomb had been erected about fifty years previously:

moss had begun to gather upon it. But it had been well cared for: there were fresh flowers before it; and the

On returning to the sick room, the young man was shocked by the announcement that his uncle had ceased to

"When your good uncle was young he was betrothed to a charming girl called Akiko, the daughter of a

neighbor. Akiko died of consumption, only a little before the day appointed for the wedding; and her

promised husband sorrowed greatly. After Akiko had been buried, he made a vow never to marry; and he

built this little house beside the cemetery, so that he might be always near her grave. All this happened more

than fifty years ago. And every day of those fifty years winter and summer alike your uncle went to

the cemetery, and prayed at the grave, and swept the tomb, and set offerings before it. But he did not like to

have any mention made of the matter; and he never spoke of it... So, at last, Akiko came for him: the white

I had almost forgotten to mention an ancient Japanese dance, called the Butterfly Dance (KochoMai), which

used to be performed in the Imperial Palace, by dancers costumed as butterflies. Whether it is danced

occasionally nowadays I do not know. It is said to be very difficult to learn. Six dancers are required for the

proper performance of it; and they must move in particular figures, obeying traditional rules for ever step,

pose, or gesture, and circling about each other very slowly to the sound of handdrums and great drums,

small flutes and great flutes, and pandean pipes of a form unknown to Western Pan.

With a view to selfprotection I have been reading Dr. Howard's book, "Mosquitoes." I am persecuted by

mosquitoes. There are several species in my neighborhood; but only one of them is a serious torment, a

tiny needly thing, all silverspeckled and silverstreaked. The puncture of it is sharp as an electric burn; and

the mere hum of it has a lancinating quality of tone which foretells the quality of the pain about to come,

much in the same way that a particular smell suggests a particular taste. I find that this mosquito much

resembles the creature which Dr. Howard calls Stegomyia fasciata, or Culex fasciatus: and that its habits are

the same as those of the Stegomyia. For example, it is diurnal rather than nocturnal and becomes most

troublesome in the afternoon. And I have discovered that it comes from the Buddhist cemetery, a very old

Dr. Howard's book declares that, in order to rid a neighborhood of mosquitoes, it is only necessary to pour a

little petroleum, or kerosene oil, into the stagnant water where they breed. Once a week the oil should be

used, "at the rate of once ounce for every fifteen square feet of watersurface, and a proportionate quantity

for any less surface." ...But please to consider the conditions in my neighborhood!

I have said that my tormentors come from the Buddhist cemetery. Before nearly every tomb in that old

cemetery there is a waterreceptacle, or cistern, called mizutame. In the majority of cases this mizutame is

simply an oblong cavity chiseled in the broad pedestal supporting the monument; but before tombs of a costly

kind, having no pedestaltank, a larger separate tank is placed, cut out of a single block of stone, and

decorated with a family crest, or with symbolic carvings. In front of a tomb of the humblest class, having no

mizutame, water is placed in cups or other vessels, for the dead must have water. Flowers also must be

offered to them; and before every tomb you will find a pair of bamboo cups, or other flowervessels; and

these, of course, contain water. There is a well in the cemetery to supply water for the graves. Whenever the

tombs are visited by relatives and friends of the dead, fresh water is poured into the tanks and cups. But as an

old cemetery of this kind contains thousands of mizutame, and tens of thousands of flowervessels the water

in all of these cannot be renewed every day. It becomes stagnant and populous. The deeper tanks seldom get

dry; the rainfall at Tokyo being heavy enough to keep them partly filled during nine months out of the

Well, it is in these tanks and flowervessels that mine enemies are born: they rise by millions from the water

of the dead; and, according to Buddhist doctrine, some of them may be reincarnations of those very dead,

condemned by the error of former lives to the condition of Jikiketsugaki, or blooddrinking pretas...

Anyhow the malevolence of the Culex fasciatus would justify the suspicion that some wicked human soul

Now, to return to the subject of keroseneoil, you can exterminate the mosquitoes of any locality by covering

with a film of kerosene all stagnant water surfaces therein. The larvae die on rising to breathe; and the adult

females perish when they approach the water to launch their rafts of eggs. And I read, in Dr. Howard's book,

that the actual cost of freeing from mosquitoes one American town of fifty thousand inhabitants, does not

I wonder what would be said if the citygovernment of Tokyo which is aggressively scientific and

progressive were suddenly to command that all watersurfaces in the Buddhist cemeteries should be

covered, at regular intervals, with a film of kerosene oil! How could the religion which prohibits the taking of

any life even of invisible life yield to such a mandate? Would filial piety even dream of consenting to

obey such an order? And then to think of the cost, in labor and time, of putting kerosene oil, every seven

days, into the millions of mizutame, and the tens of millions of bamboo flowercups, in the Tokyo

graveyards!... Impossible! To free the city from mosquitoes it would be necessary to demolish the ancient

graveyards; and that would signify the ruin of the Buddhist temples attached to them; and that would

mean the disparition of so many charming gardens, with their lotusponds and Sanscritlettered monuments

and humpy bridges and holy groves and weirdlysmiling Buddhas! So the extermination of the Culex

fasciatus would involve the destruction of the poetry of the ancestral cult, surely too great a price to pay!...

Besides, I should like, when my time comes, to be laid away in some Buddhist graveyard of the ancient

kind, so that my ghostly company should be ancient, caring nothing for the fashions and the changes and

the disintegrations of Meiji (1). That old cemetery behind my garden would be a suitable place. Everything

there is beautiful with a beauty of exceeding and startling queerness; each tree and stone has been shaped by

some old, old ideal which no longer exists in any living brain; even the shadows are not of this time and sun,

but of a world forgotten, that never knew steam or electricity or magnetism or kerosene oil! Also in the

boom of the big bell there is a quaintness of tone which wakens feelings, so strangely faraway from all the

nineteenthcentury part of me, that the faint blind stirrings of them make me afraid, deliciously afraid.

Never do I hear that billowing peal but I become aware of a striving and a fluttering in the abyssal part of my

ghost, a sensation as of memories struggling to reach the light beyond the obscurations of a million million

deaths and births. I hope to remain within hearing of that bell... And, considering the possibility of being

doomed to the state of a Jikiketsugaki, I want to have my chance of being reborn in some bamboo

flowercup, or mizutame, whence I might issue softly, singing my thin and pungent song, to bite some

This morning sky, after the night's tempest, is a pure and dazzling blue. The air the delicious air! is full

of sweet resinous odors, shed from the countless pineboughs broken and strewn by the gale. In the

neighboring bamboogrove I hear the flutecall of the bird that praises the Sutra of the Lotos; and the land is

very still by reason of the south wind. Now the summer, long delayed, is truly with us: butterflies of queer

Japanese colors are flickering about; semi (1) are wheezing; wasps are humming; gnats are dancing in the

sun; and the ants are busy repairing their damaged habitations... I bethink me of a Japanese poem:

[Now the poor creature has nowhere to go!... Alas for the dwellings of the ants in this rain of the fifth month!]

But those big black ants in my garden do not seem to need any sympathy. They have weathered the storm in

some unimaginable way, while great trees were being uprooted, and houses blown to fragments, and roads

washed out of existence. Yet, before the typhoon, they took no other visible precaution than to block up the

gates of their subterranean town. And the spectacle of their triumphant toil today impels me to attempt an

I should have like to preface my disquisitions with something from the old Japanese literature, something

emotional or metaphysical. But all that my Japanese friends were able to find for me on the subject,

excepting some verses of little worth, was Chinese. This Chinese material consisted chiefly of strange

In the province of Taishu, in China, there was a pious man who, every day, during many years, fervently

worshiped a certain goddess. One morning, while he was engaged in his devotions, a beautiful woman,

wearing a yellow robe, came into his chamber and stood before him. He, greatly surprised, asked her what

she wanted, and why she had entered unannounced. She answered: "I am not a woman: I am the goddess

whom you have so long and so faithfully worshiped; and I have now come to prove to you that your devotion

has not been in vain... Are you acquainted with the language of Ants?" The worshiper replied: "I am only a

lowborn and ignorant person, not a scholar; and even of the language of superior men I know nothing."

At these words the goddess smiled, and drew from her bosom a little box, shaped like an incense box. She

opened the box, dipped a finger into it, and took therefrom some kind of ointment with which she anointed

the ears of the man. "Now," she said to him, "try to find some Ants, and when you find any, stoop down, and

listen carefully to their talk. You will be able to understand it; and you will hear of something to your

advantage... Only remember that you must not frighten or vex the Ants." Then the goddess vanished away.

The man immediately went out to look for some Ants. He had scarcely crossed the threshold of his door

when he perceived two Ants upon a stone supporting one of the housepillars. He stooped over them, and

listened; and he was astonished to find that he could hear them talking, and could understand what they said.

"Let us try to find a warmer place," proposed one of the Ants. "Why a warmer place?" asked the other;

"what is the matter with this place?" "It is too damp and cold below," said the first Ant; "there is a big

treasure buried here; and the sunshine cannot warm the ground about it." Then the two Ants went away

By digging in the neighborhood of the pillar, he soon found a number of large jars full of gold coin. The

Afterwards he often tried to listen to the conversation of Ants. But he was never again able to hear them

speak. The ointment of the goddess had opened his ears to their mysterious language for only a single day.

Now I, like that Chinese devotee, must confess myself a very ignorant person, and naturally unable to hear

the conversation of Ants. But the Fairy of Science sometimes touches my ears and eyes with her wand; and

then, for a little time, I am able to hear things inaudible, and to perceive things imperceptible.

For the same reason that it is considered wicked, in sundry circles, to speak of a nonChristian people having

produced a civilization ethically superior to our own, certain persons will not be pleased by what I am going

to say about ants. But there are men, incomparably wiser than I can ever hope to be, who think about insects

and civilizations independently of the blessings of Christianity; and I find encouragement in the new

Cambridge Natural History, which contains the following remarks by Professor David Sharp, concerning

"Observation has revealed the most remarkable phenomena in the lives of these insects. Indeed we can

scarcely avoid the conclusion that they have acquired, in many respects, the art of living together in societies

more perfectly than our own species has; and that they have anticipated us in the acquisition of some of the

I suppose that a few wellinformed persons will dispute this plain statement by a trained specialist. The

contemporary man of science is not apt to become sentimental about ants or bees; but he will not hesitate to

acknowledge that, in regard to social evolution, these insects appear to have advanced "beyond man." Mr.

Herbert Spencer, whom nobody will charge with romantic tendencies, goes considerably further than

Professor Sharp; showing us that ants are, in a very real sense, ethically as well as economically in advance of

humanity, their lives being entirely devoted to altruistic ends. Indeed, Professor Sharp somewhat

"The competence of the ant is not like that of man. It is devoted to the welfare of the species rather than to

that of the individual, which is, as it were, sacrificed or specialized for the benefit of the community."

The obvious implication, that any social state, in which the improvement of the individual is

sacrificed to the common welfare, leaves much to be desired, is probably correct, from the actual

human standpoint. For man is yet imperfectly evolved; and human society has much to gain from his

further individualization. But in regard to social insects the implied criticism is open to question.

"The improvement of the individual," says Herbert Spencer, "consists in the better fitting of him for

social cooperation; and this, being conducive to social prosperity, is conducive to the maintenance of

the race." In other words, the value of the individual can be only in relation to the society; and this

granted, whether the sacrifice of the individual for the sake of that society be good or evil must

depend upon what the society might gain or lose through a further individualization of its members...

But as we shall presently see, the conditions of antsociety that most deserve our attention are the

ethical conditions; and these are beyond human criticism, since they realize that ideal of moral

evolution described by Mr. Spencer as "a state in which egoism and altruism are so conciliated that

the one merges into the other." That is to say, a state in which the only possible pleasure is the

pleasure of unselfish action. Or, again to quote Mr. Spencer, the activities of the insectsociety are

"activities which postpone individual wellbeing so completely to the wellbeing of the community

that individual life appears to be attended to only just so far as is necessary to make possible due

attention to social life,... the individual taking only just such food and just such rest as are needful to

I hope my reader is aware that ants practise horticulture and agriculture; that they are skillful in the

cultivation of mushrooms; that they have domesticated (according to present knowledge) five hundred and

eightyfour different kinds of animals; that they make tunnels through solid rock; that they know how to

provide against atmospheric changes which might endanger the health of their children; and that, for insects,

their longevity is exceptional, members of the more highly evolved species living for a considerable

But it is not especially of these matters that I wish to speak. What I want to talk about is the awful propriety,

the terrible morality, of the ant [1]. Our most appalling ideals of conduct fall short of the ethics of the ant,

as progress is reckoned in time, by nothing less than millions of years!... When I say "the ant," I mean the

highest type of ant, not, of course, the entire antfamily. About two thousand species of ants are already

known; and these exhibit, in their social organizations, widely varying degrees of evolution. Certain social

phenomena of the greatest biological importance, and of no less importance in their strange relation to the

subject of ethics, can be studied to advantage only in the existence of the most highly evolved societies of

After all that has been written of late years about the probable value of relative experience in the long life of

the ant, I suppose that few persons would venture to deny individual character to the ant. The intelligence of

the little creature in meeting and overcoming difficulties of a totally new kind, and in adapting itself to

conditions entirely foreign to its experience, proves a considerable power of independent thinking. But this at

least is certain: that the ant has no individuality capable of being exercised in a purely selfish direction; I

am using the word "selfish" in its ordinary acceptation. A greedy ant, a sensual ant, an ant capable of any one

of the seven deadly sins, or even of a small venial sin, is unimaginable. Equally unimaginable, of course, a

romantic ant, an ideological ant, a poetical ant, or an ant inclined to metaphysical speculations. No human

mind could attain to the absolute matteroffact quality of the antmind; no human being, as now

constituted, could cultivate a mental habit so impeccably practical as that of the ant. But this superlatively

practical mind is incapable of moral error. It would be difficult, perhaps, to prove that the ant has no religious

ideas. But it is certain that such ideas could not be of any use to it. The being incapable of moral weakness is

Only in a vague way can we conceive the character of antsociety, and the nature of antmorality; and to do

even this we must try to imagine some yet impossible state of human society and human morals. Let us, then,

imagine a world full of people incessantly and furiously working, all of whom seem to be women. No one

of these women could be persuaded or deluded into taking a single atom of food more than is needful to

maintain her strength; and no one of them ever sleeps a second longer than is necessary to keep her nervous

system in good workingorder. And all of them are so peculiarly constituted that the least unnecessary

The work daily performed by these female laborers comprises roadmaking, bridgebuilding,

timbercutting, architectural construction of numberless kinds, horticulture and agriculture, the feeding and

sheltering of a hundred varieties of domestic animals, the manufacture of sundry chemical products, the

storage and conservation of countless foodstuffs, and the care of the children of the race. All this labor is

done for the commonwealth no citizen of which is capable even of thinking about "property," except as a

res publica; and the sole object of the commonwealth is the nurture and training of its young, nearly all

of whom are girls. The period of infancy is long: the children remain for a great while, not only helpless, but

shapeless, and withal so delicate that they must be very carefully guarded against the least change of

temperature. Fortunately their nurses understand the laws of health: each thoroughly knows all that she ought

to know in regard to ventilation, disinfection, drainage, moisture, and the danger of germs, germs being as

visible, perhaps, to her myopic sight as they become to our own eyes under the microscope. Indeed, all

matters of hygiene are so well comprehended that no nurse ever makes a mistake about the sanitary

In spite of this perpetual labor no worker remains unkempt: each is scrupulously neat, making her toilet many

times a day. But as every worker is born with the most beautiful of combs and brushes attached to her wrists,

no time is wasted in the toiletroom. Besides keeping themselves strictly clean, the workers must also keep

their houses and gardens in faultless order, for the sake of the children. Nothing less than an earthquake, an

eruption, an inundation, or a desperate war, is allowed to interrupt the daily routine of dusting, sweeping,

This world of incessant toil is a more than Vestal world. It is true that males can sometimes be perceived in it;

but they appear only at particular seasons, and they have nothing whatever to do with the workers or with the

work. None of them would presume to address a worker, except, perhaps, under extraordinary

circumstances of common peril. And no worker would think of talking to a male; for males, in this queer

world, are inferior beings, equally incapable of fighting or working, and tolerated only as necessary evils.

One special class of females, the MothersElect of the race, do condescend to consort with males,

during a very brief period, at particular seasons. But the MothersElect do not work; and they most accept

husbands. A worker could not even dream of keeping company with a male, not merely because such

association would signify the most frivolous waste of time, nor yet because the worker necessarily regards all

males with unspeakable contempt; but because the worker is incapable of wedlock. Some workers, indeed,

are capable of parthenogenesis, and give birth to children who never had fathers. As a general rule, however,

the worker is truly feminine by her moral instincts only: she has all the tenderness, the patience, and the

foresight that we call "maternal;" but her sex has disappeared, like the sex of the DragonMaiden in the

For defense against creatures of prey, or enemies of the state, the workers are provided with weapons; and

they are furthermore protected by a large military force. The warriors are so much bigger than the workers (in

some communities, at least) that it is difficult, at first sight, to believe them of the same race. Soldiers one

hundred times larger than the workers whom they guard are not uncommon. But all these soldiers are

Amazons, or, more correctly speaking, semifemales. They can work sturdily; but being built for fighting

and for heavy pulling chiefly, their usefulness is restricted to those directions in which force, rather than skill,

[Why females, rather than males, should have been evolutionally specialized into soldiery and laborers may

not be nearly so simple a question as it appears. I am very sure of not being able to answer it. But natural

economy may have decided the matter. In many forms of life, the female greatly exceeds the male in bulk and

in energy; perhaps, in this case, the larger reserve of lifeforce possessed originally by the complete

female could be more rapidly and effectively utilized for the development of a special fightingcaste. All

energies which, in the fertile female, would be expended in the giving of life seem here to have been diverted

Of the true females, the MothersElect, there are very few indeed; and these are treated like queens. So

constantly and so reverentially are they waited upon that they can seldom have any wishes to express. They

are relieved from every care of existence, except the duty of bearing offspring. Night and day they are

cared for in every possible manner. They alone are superabundantly and richly fed: for the sake of the

offspring they must eat and drink and repose right royally; and their physiological specialization allows of

such indulgence ad libitum. They seldom go out, and never unless attended by a powerful escort; as they

cannot be permitted to incur unnecessary fatigue or danger. Probably they have no great desire to go out.

Around them revolves the whole activity of the race: all its intelligence and toil and thrift are directed solely

But last and least of the race rank the husbands of these Mothers, the necessary Evils, the males. They

appear only at a particular season, as I have already observed; and their lives are very short. Some cannot

even boast of noble descent, though destined to royal wedlock; for they are not royal offspring, but

virginborn, parthenogenetic children, and, for that reason especially, inferior beings, the chance results

of some mysterious atavism. But of any sort of males the commonwealth tolerates but few, barely enough

to serve as husbands for the MothersElect, and these few perish almost as soon as their duty has been done.

The meaning of Nature's law, in this extraordinary world, is identical with Ruskin's teaching that life without

effort is crime; and since the males are useless as workers or fighters, their existence is of only momentary

importance. They are not, indeed, sacrificed, like the Aztec victim chosen for the festival of Tezcatlipoca,

and allowed a honeymoon of twenty days before his heart was torn out. But they are scarcely less unfortunate

in their high fortune. Imagine youths brought up in the knowledge that they are destined to become royal

bridegrooms for a single night, that after their bridal they will have no moral right to live, that marriage,

for each and all of them, will signify certain death, and that they cannot even hope to be lamented by their

But all the foregoing is no more than a proem to the real "Romance of the InsectWorld."

By far the most startling discovery in relation to this astonishing civilization is that of the suppression

of sex. In certain advanced forms of antlife sex totally disappears in the majority of individuals;

in nearly all the higher antsocieties sexlife appears to exist only to the extent absolutely needed for

the continuance of the species. But the biological fact in itself is much less startling than the ethical

suggestion which it offers; for this practical suppression, or regulation, of sexfaculty appears to

be voluntary! Voluntary, at least, so far as the species is concerned. It is now believed that they

wonderful creatures have learned how to develop, or to arrest the development, of sex in their

young, by some particular mode of nutrition. They have succeeded in placing under perfect control

what is commonly supposed to be the most powerful and unmanageable of instincts. And this rigid

restraint of sexlife to within the limits necessary to provide against extinction is but one (though the

most amazing) of many vital economies effected by the race. Every capacity for egoistic pleasure

in the common meaning of the word "egoistic" has been equally repressed through physiological

modification. No indulgence of any natural appetite is possible except to that degree in which such

indulgence can directly or indirectly benefit the species; even the indispensable requirements of

food and sleep being satisfied only to the exact extent necessary for the maintenance of healthy

activity. The individual can exist, act, think, only for the communal good; and the commune

triumphantly refuses, in so far as cosmic law permits, to let itself be ruled eitherby Love or Hunger.

Most of us have been brought up in the belief that without some kind of religious creed some hope of

future reward or fear of future punishment no civilization could exist. We have been taught to think that in

the absence of laws based upon moral ideas, and in the absence of an effective police to enforce such laws,

nearly everybody would seek only his or her personal advantage, to the disadvantage of everybody else. The

strong would then destroy the weak; pity and sympathy would disappear; and the whole social fabric would

fall to pieces... These teachings confess the existing imperfection of human nature; and they contain obvious

truth. But those who first proclaimed that truth, thousands and thousands of years ago, never imagined a form

of social existence in which selfishness would be naturally impossible. It remained for irreligious Nature to

furnish us with proof positive that there can exist a society in which the pleasure of active beneficence makes

needless the idea of duty, a society in which instinctive morality can dispense with ethical codes of every

sort, a society of which every member is born so absolutely unselfish, and so energetically good, that

moral training could signify, even for its youngest, neither more nor less than waste of precious time.

To the Evolutionist such facts necessarily suggest that the value of our moral idealism is but temporary; and

that something better than virtue, better than kindness, better than selfdenial, in the present human

meaning of those terms, might, under certain conditions, eventually replace them. He finds himself obliged

to face the question whether a world without moral notions might not be morally better than a world in which

conduct is regulated by such notions. He must even ask himself whether the existence of religious

commandments, moral laws, and ethical standards among ourselves does not prove us still in a very primitive

stage of social evolution. And these questions naturally lead up to another: Will humanity ever be able, on

this planet, to reach an ethical condition beyond all its ideals, a condition in which everything that we now

call evil will have been atrophied out of existence, and everything that we call virtue have been transmuted

into instinct; a state of altruism in which ethical concepts and codes will have become as useless as they

The giants of modern thought have given some attention to this question; and the greatest among them has

answered it partly in the affirmative. Herbert Spencer has expressed his belief that humanity will arrive at

"If we have, in lower orders of creatures, cases in which the nature is constitutionally so modified that

altruistic activities have become one with egoistic activities, there is an irresistible implication that a parallel

identification will, under parallel conditions, take place among human beings. Social insects furnish us with

instances completely to the point, and instances showing us, indeed, to what a marvelous degree the life of

the individual may be absorbed in subserving the lives of other individuals... Neither the ant nor the bee can

be supposed to have a sense of duty, in the acceptation we give to that word; nor can it be supposed that it is

continually undergoing selfsacrifice, in the ordinary acceptation of that word... [The facts] show us that it is

within the possibilities of organization to produce a nature which shall be just as energetic in the pursuit of

altruistic ends, as is in other cases shown in the pursuit of egoistic ends; and they show that, in such cases,

these altruistic ends are pursued in pursuing ends which, on their other face, are egoistic. For the satisfaction

of the needs of the organization, these actions, conducive to the welfare of others, must be carried on...

"So far from its being true that there must go on, throughout all the futur e, a condition in which selfregard

is to be continually subjected by the regard for others, it will, contrariwise, be the case that a regard for

others will eventually become so large a source of pleasure as to overgrow the pleasure which is derivable

from direct egoistic gratification... Eventually, then, there will come also a state in which egoism and altruism

Of course the foregoing prediction does not imply that human nature will ever undergo such physiological

change as would be represented by structural specializations comparable to those by which the various castes

of insect societies are differentiated. We are not bidden to imagine a future state of humanity in which the

active majority would consist of semifemale workers and Amazons toiling for an inactive minority of

selected Mothers. Even in his chapter, "Human Population in the Future," Mr. Spencer has attempted no

detailed statement of the physical modifications inevitable to the production of higher moral types, though

his general statement in regard to a perfected nervous system, and a great diminution of human fertility,

suggests that such moral evolution would signify a very considerable amount of physical change. If it be

legitimate to believe in a future humanity to which the pleasure of mutual beneficence will represent the

whole joy of life, would it not also be legitimate to imagine other transformations, physical and moral, which

the facts of insectbiology have proved to be within the range of evolutional possibility?... I do not know. I

most worshipfully reverence Herbert Spencer as the greatest philosopher who has yet appeared in this world;

and I should be very sorry to write down anything contrary to his teaching, in such wise that the reader could

imagine it to have been inspired by Synthetic Philosophy. For the ensuing reflections, I alone am responsible;

I suppose that the moral transformations predicted by Mr. Spencer, could be effected only with the aid of

physiological change, and at a terrible cost. Those ethical conditions manifested by insectsocieties can have

been reached only through effort desperately sustained for millions of years against the most atrocious

necessities. Necessities equally merciless may have to be met and mastered eventually by the human race.

Mr. Spencer has shown that the time of the greatest possible human suffering is yet to come, and that it will

be concomitant with the period of the greatest possible pressure of population. Among other results of that

long stress, I understand that there will be a vast increase in human intelligence and sympathy; and that this

increases of intelligence will be effected at the cost of human fertility. But this decline in reproductive power

will not, we are told, be sufficient to assure the very highest of social conditions: it will only relieve that

pressure of population which has been the main cause of human suffering. The state of perfect social

Unless there be discovered some means of solving economic problems, just as social insects have solved

Supposing that such a discovery were made, and that the human race should decide to arrest the development

of six in the majority of its young, so as to effect a transferrence of those forces, now demanded by

sexlife to the development of higher activities, might not the result be an eventual state of polymorphism,

like that of ants? And, in such event, might not the Coming Race be indeed represented in its higher types,

through feminine rather than masculine evolution, by a majority of beings of neither sex?

Considering how many persons, even now, through merely unselfish (not to speak of religious) motives,

sentence themselves to celibacy, it should not appear improbably that a more highly evolved humanity would

cheerfully sacrifice a large proportion of its sexlife for the common weal, particular ly in view of certain

advantages to be gained. Not the least of such advantages always supposing that mankind were able to

control sexlife after the natural manner of the ants would be a prodigious increase of longevity. The

higher types of a humanity superior to sex might be able to realize the dream of life for a thousand years.

Already we find lives too short for the work we have to do; and with the constantly accelerating progress of

discovery, and the neverceasing expansion of knowledge, we shall certainly find more and more reason to

regret, as time goes on, the brevity of existence. That Science will ever discover the Elixir of the Alchemists'

hope is extremely unlikely. The Cosmic Powers will not allow us to cheat them. For every advantage which

they yield us the full price must be paid: nothing for nothing is the everlasting law. Perhaps the price of long

life will prove to be the price that the ants have paid for it. Perhaps, upon some elder planet, that price has

already been paid, and the power to produce offspring restricted to a caste morphologically differentiated, in

But while the facts of insectbiology suggest so much in regard to the future course of human evolution, do

they not also suggest something of largest significance concerning the relation of ethics to cosmic law?

Apparently, the highest evolution will not be permitted to creatures capable of what human moral experience

has in all areas condemned. Apparently, the highest possible strength is the strength of unselfishness; and

power supreme never will be accorded to cruelty or to lust. There may be no gods; but the forces that shape

and dissolve all forms of being would seem to be much more exacting than gods. To prove a "dramatic

tendency" in the ways of the stars is not possible; but the cosmic process seems nevertheless to affirm the

[1] See my Kotto, for a description of these curious crabs. [2] Or, Shimonoseki. The town is also known by

the name of Bakkan. [3] The biwa, a kind of fourstringed lute, is chiefly used in musical recitative.

Formerly the professional minstrels who recited the HeikeMonogatari, and other tragical histories, were

called biwahoshi, or "lutepriests." The origin of this appellation is not clear; but it is possible that it may

have been suggested by the fact that "lutepriests" as well as blind shampooers, had their heads shaven, like

Buddhist priests. The biwa is played with a kind of plectrum, called bachi, usually made of horn.

(1) A response to show that one has heard and is listening attentively. [4] A respectful term, signifying the

opening of a gate. It was used by samurai when calling to the guards on duty at a lord's gate for admission.

[5] Or the phrase might be rendered, "for the pity of that part is the deepest." The Japanese word for pity in

the original text is "aware." [6] "Traveling incognito" is at least the meaning of the original phrase,

PragnaParamitaHridayaSutra is thus called in Japanese. Both the smaller and larger sutras called

PragnaParamita ("Transcendent Wisdom") have been translated by the late Professor Max Muller, and can

be found in volume xlix. of the Sacred Books of the East ("Buddhist Mahayana Sutras"). Apropos of the

magical use of the text, as described in this story, it is worth remarking that the subject of the sutra is the

Doctrine of the Emptiness of Forms, that is to say, of the unreal character of all phenomena or noumena...

"Form is emptiness; and emptiness is form. Emptiness is not different from form; form is not different from

emptiness. What is form that is emptiness. What is emptiness that is form... Perception, name, concept,

and knowledge, are also emptiness... There is no eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind... But when

theenvelopment of consciousness has been annihilated, then he [the seeker] becomes free from all fear, and

[1] From ancient time, in the Far East, these birds have been regarded as emblems of conjugal affection.

[2] There is a pathetic double meaning in the third verse; for the syllables composing the proper name

Akanuma ("Red Marsh") may also be read as akanuma, signifying "the time of our inseparable (or

delightful) relation." So the poem can also be thus rendered: "When the day began to fail, I had invited him

to accompany me...! Now, after the time of that happy relation, what misery for the one who must slumber

alone in the shadow of the rushes!" The makomo is a short of large rush, used for making baskets.

(1) "sama" is a polite suffix attached to personal names. (2) A Buddhist term commonly used to signify a

kind of heaven. [1] The Buddhist term zokumyo ("profane name") signifies the personal name, borne during

life, in contradistinction to the kaimyo ("silaname") or homyo ("Lawname") given after death, religious

posthumous appellations inscribed upon the tomb, and upon the mortuary tablet in the parishtemple. For

some account of these, see my paper entitled, "The Literature of the Dead," in Exotics and Retrospectives. [2]

(3) Direct translation of a Japanese form of address used toward young, unmarried women.

(1) The spacious house and grounds of a wealthy person is thus called. (2) A Buddhist service for the dead.

(1) Part of presentday Shizuoka Prefecture. (2) The twohour period between 1 AM and 3 AM. (3) A

(1) The southern part of presentday Gifu Prefecture. [1] Literally, a maneating goblin. The Japanese

narrator gives also the Sanscrit term, "Rakshasa;" but this word is quite as vague as jikininki, since there are

many kinds of Rakshasas. Apparently the word jikininki signifies here one of the BaramonRasetsuGaki,

forming the twentysixth class of pretas enumerated in the old Buddhist books. [2] A Segakiservice is a

special Buddhist service performed on behalf of beings supposed to have entered into the condition of gaki

(pretas), or hungry spirits. For a brief account of such a service, see my Japanese Miscellany.

[3] Literally, "fivecircle [or fivezone] stone." A funeral monument consisting of five parts

superimposed, each of a different form, symbolizing the five mystic elements: Ether, Air, Fire, Water,

(1) A kind of badger. Certain animals were thought to be able to transform themselves and cause mischief for

humans. [1] Ojochu ("honorable damsel"), a polite form of address used in speaking to a young lady whom

one does not know. (2) An apparition with a smooth, totally featureless face, called a "nopperabo," is a stock

part of the Japanese pantheon of ghosts and demons. [2] Soba is a preparation of buckwheat, somewhat

[1] The period of Eikyo lasted from 1429 to 1441. [2] The upper robe of a Buddhist priest is thus called. (1)

[3] A sort of little fireplace, contrived in the floor of a room, is thus described. The ro is usually a square

shallow cavity, lined with metal and halffilled with ashes, in which charcoal is lighted. (3) Direct translation

of "suzumushi," a kind of cricket with a distinctive chirp like a tiny bell, whence the name. (4) Now a

rokurokubi is ordinarily conceived as a goblin whose neck stretches out to great lengths, but which

(5) A Chinese collection of stories on the supernatural. [4] A present made to friends or to the household on

returning from a journey is thus called. Ordinarily, of course, the miyage consists of something produced in

the locality to which the journey has been made: this is the point of Kwairyo's jest.

(1) On the presentday map, Tamba corresponds roughly to the central area of Kyoto Prefecture and part of

Hyogo Prefecture. [1] The Hour of the Rat (NenoKoku), according to the old Japanese method of

reckoning time, was the first hour. It corresponded to the time between our midnight and two o'clock in the

[2] Kaimyo, the posthumous Buddhist name, or religious name, given to the dead. Strictly speaking, the

meaning of the work is silaname. (See my paper entitled, "The Literature of the Dead" in Exotics and

(1) An ancient province whose boundaries took in most of presentday Tokyo, and parts of Saitama and

Kanagawa prefectures. [1] That is to say, with a floorsurface of about six feet square. [2] This name,

signifying "Snow," is not uncommon. On the subject of Japanese female names, see my paper in the volume

(1) An ancient province corresponding to the northern part of presentday Ishikawa Prefecture.

(2) An ancient province corresponding to the eastern part of presentday Fukui Prefecture.

[1] The name signifies "Green Willow;" though rarely met with, it is still in use.

[2] The poem may be read in two ways; several of the phrases having a double meaning. But the art of its

construction would need considerable space to explain, and could scarcely interest the Western reader. The

meaning which Tomotada desired to convey might be thus expressed: "While journeying to visit my

mother, I met with a being lovely as a flower; and for the sake of that lovely person, I am passing the day

here... Fair one, wherefore that dawnlike blush before the hour of dawn? can it mean that you love me?"

[3] Another reading is possible; but this one gives the signification of the answer intended.

[4] So the Japanese storyteller would have us believe, although the verses seem commonplace in

translation. I have tried to give only their general meaning: an effective literal translation would require some

[1] This name "Tokoyo" is indefinite. According to circumstances it may signify any unknown country, or

that undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns, or that Fairyland of fareastern fable, the

Realm of Horai. The term "Kokuo" means the ruler of a country, therefore a king. The original phrase,

Tokoyo no Kokuo, might be rendered here as "the Ruler of Horai," or "the King of Fairyland." [2] The last

phrase, according to old custom, had to be uttered by both attendants at the same time. All these ceremonial

[3] This was the name given to the estrade, or dais, upon which a feudal prince or ruler sat in state. The term

(1) Kana: the Japanese phonetic alphabet. (2) "Soandso": appellation used by Hearn in place of the real

[1] A square piece of cottongoods, or other woven material, used as a wrapper in which to carry small

[1] "The modest nymph beheld her God, and blushed." (Or, in a more familiar rendering: "The modest water

saw its God, and blushed.") In this line the double value of the word nympha used by classical poets both

in the meaning of fountain and in that of the divinity of a fountain, or spring reminds one of that graceful

[2] More usually written nugikakeru, which means either "to take off and hang up," or "to begin to take off,"

as in the above poem. More loosely, but more effectively, the verses might thus be rendered: "Like a

woman slipping off her haori that is the appearance of a butterfly." One must have seen the Japanese

garment described, to appreciate the comparison. The haori is a silk upperdress, a kind of sleeved

cloak, worn by both sexes; but the poem suggests a woman's haori, which is usually of richer color or

material. The sleeves are wide; and the lining is usually of brightlycolored silk, often beautifully variegated.

In taking off the haori, the brilliant lining is displayed, and at such an instant the fluttering splendor might

[3] The birdcatcher's pole is smeared with birdlime; and the verses suggest that the insect is preventing the

man from using his pole, by persistently getting in the way of it, as the birds might take warning from

seeing the butterfly limed. Jama suru means "to hinder" or "prevent." [4] Even while it is resting, the wings of

the butterfly may be seen to quiver at moments, as if the creature were dreaming of flight. [5] A little poem

by Basho, greatest of all Japanese composers of hokku. The verses are intended to suggest the joyous feeling

of springtime. [6] Literally, "a windless day;" but two negatives in Japanese poetry do not necessarily imply

an affirmative, as in English. The meaning is, that although there is no wind, the fluttering motion of the

butterflies suggests, to the eyes at least, that a strong breeze is playing. [7] Alluding to the Buddhist proverb:

Rakkwa eda ni kaerazu; hakyo futatabi terasazu ("The fallen flower returns not to the branch; the broken

mirror never again reflects.") So says the proverb yet it seemed to me that I saw a fallen flower return to

[8] Alluding probably to the light fluttering motion of falling cherrypetals. [9] That is to say, the grace of

their motion makes one think of the grace of young girls, daintily costumed, in robes with long fluttering

sleeves... And old Japanese proverb declares that even a devil is pretty at eighteen: Oni mo jiuhachi azami

[10] Or perhaps the verses might be more effectively rendered thus: "Happy together, do you say? Yes if

we should be reborn as fieldbutterflies in some future life: then we might accord!" This poem was

composed by the celebrated poet Issa, on the occasion of divorcing his wife. [11] Or, Tare no tama?

[Digitizer's note: Hearn's note calls attention to an alternative reading of the ideogram for "spirit" or "soul."]

[12] Literally, "Butterflypursing heart I wish to have always;' i.e., I would that I might always be able to

[13] An old popular error, probably imported from China. [14] A name suggested by the resemblance of

the larva's artificial covering to the mino, or strawraincoat, worn by Japanese peasants. I am not sure

whether the dictionary rendering, "basketworm," is quite correct; but the larva commonly called

minomushi does really construct for itself something much like the covering of the basketworm. (2) A very

large, white radish. "Daikon" literally means "big root." [15] Pyrus spectabilis.

(1) Meiji: The period in which Hearn wrote this book. It lasted from 1868 to 1912, and was a time when

Japan plunged headfirst into Westernstyle modernization. By the "fashions and the changes and the

disintegrations of Meiji" Hearn is lamenting that this process of modernization was destroying some of the

[1] An interesting fact in this connection is that the Japanese word for ant, ari, is represented by an ideograph

formed of the character for "insect" combined with the character signifying "moral rectitude," "propriety"