This weekend I will be at all-day-long events, so I won’t be able to paint anything on Saturday or Sunday. I will still queue up some A-Yokai-A-Day posts for those days; they will be stories not from Mimibukuro, but from my newest book Echizen-Wakasa Kidan, which will be available to order from the yokai.com web shop later this year, after copies have shipped out to all Kickstarter backers.

Tonight’s tale comes from a member of the Hino clan (the same Hino clan that the hitodama story from a few days back originated from) however this tale takes place during the reign of Hino Sukeyoshi, who lived from 1618 to 1698—more than 100 years before volume 8 of Mimibukuro (written somewhere around 1808).

The Strange Tale of Komai Zōsu’s Wandering Spirit

The man known as Hino Iyo no Kami Sukeyoshi, who served for a time as a kōke, had a retainer named Komai Zōsu, who lived on Hino’s estate.

He had been serving faithfully in Edo, and a time came when he needed to establish a family temple there. He attended to the temple affairs diligently, but since his family already had a temple in his home province of Jōshū, he explained to his lord and his peers, “If I should die, I would like to be buried at the temple where my ancestors have been laid to rest. But as I am serving here in Edo, I have no choice but to designate a temple here as well.”

His friends and peers said, “That should be no problem to arrange.” And some time passed without incident.

Recently, Komai had begun feeling as though he caught a cold, and he was bedridden. Even during his illness, he repeatedly told his relatives and fellow retainers that he wished to be buried at the temple in his home province. And before long, he died.

His relatives and fellow retainers expressed his last wishes to his lord, who said, “Since he has already designated a temple in Edo as his family temple, there may be complications back in his home province unless the temple provides a letter authorizing his transfer. What should we do?”

So, a monk was dispatched from the Edo temple to Komai’s home province with a letter of authorization.

When the monk went to the Edo temple, they told him that they had already prepared the transfer letter that Zōsu himself had requested. So he brought it with him. However, the day that Zōsu was said to have visited the Edo temple was the day after his death.

Such things often happen due to one’s strong intentions, according to Lord Hino—so I have recorded his tale here.

Tonight’s tale is a variation of a common one. I shared a similar tale from Shokoku hyakumonogatari during A-Yokai-A-Day a few years ago. Tonight’s has a much better title though!

The big baddie in this story is once again a night heron, called goisaki in Japanese. I’m not sure why they are so frequently linked to yokai and ghost tales. Aosagibi is another heron-themed yokai. Possibly because they are sometimes active at night, and they are rarely seen? Although they come out in the day too… Or is it the bright red eyes? I think they are rather charming. Especially the little flappy feathers on the back of their heads!

In any case, it gave me an excuse to paint a bird, which I am always happy for the opportunity to do!

How a Ghost was Cooked and Eaten

This happened in the fall of the second year of the Bunka era (1805). A man from Yotsuya was walking along a road in the middle of the night on some errand, when he saw a figure dressed entirely in white walking ahead of him. Looking closer, the figure appeared invisible from the waist down.

Thinking, “Might this be a yūrei?” he followed afterward. When the figure turned around, he saw a single large glowing eye, so he suddenly drew his sword and slashed at it.

It screamed, “Kyaa!” and collapsed. The man seized it, pinned it to the ground, and stabbed it to death—only to discover it was a large night heron.

He carried it home as-is, and a group of his young friends gathered together to season and eat it.

This became the talk of the town—that they had cooked and eaten a ghost.

Readers will be happy to know that tonight’s kitsune tale is a heartwarming one, not a sad one like the previous animal stories we had.

The story refers to a man named so-and-so and a place called such-and-such. This is more or less a direct translation of what the original text says, even though it sounds a little awkward when translated in English. This kind of vague phrasing actually isn’t too uncommon in Mimibukuro. We can assume the fox gave a specific name and place when he spoke, but they were either not remembered or not known by the storyteller.

The Fox Who Sought Out a Surgeon and Repaid His Kindness

There was a surgeon serving the Tayasu surgery clinic named Yoko’o Dōeki. His father, also named Dōeki, was from Nagasaki, but his son had long wished to move out east to establish his own practice. However, because this was such a great undertaking, this plan was delayed time and time again.

One day, a man came seeking treatment. Upon examination, Dōeki found a swelling on the man’s shoulder. He administered medicine, and after a few days, the injury healed. The man expressed his deep gratitude and presented Dōeki with 200 copper coins. However, Dōeki refused the payment, saying, “When you came, you told us that you were a traveler in difficult circumstances, so we provided the medicine out of goodwill. There is no need for payment. Please use it for your travel expenses.”

The man expressed his deep gratitude and insisted that Dōeki keep the money. Finally, Dōeki asked, “Who exactly are you?”

The man replied, “There is no reason to hide it any longer. I am a fox, and I have traveled here on an errand from the Chanoki Inari shrine in Ichigaya, Edo. On the way, I was struck unexpectedly by a stone tile and suffered an injury—but thanks to you I have recovered and will return home tomorrow. You have long wished to go to Edo, but have not been able to arrange it yet. Your destiny lies with the Nagasaki magistrate who will arrive next year. Through him, you will be able to go to Edo. Once you get there, seek out a man named so-and-so who lives behind a such-and-such shop in Ichigaya. He is a dependable person, so entrust your fate to him.” And then he departed.

Dōeki remained bewildered by this strange occurrence, when the following year, the magistrate serving in Nagasaki developed a painful boil. Dōeki treated him and he recovered, and the magistrate suggested Dōeki move to Edo. When the magistrate’s term of service ended and he was rotated back to Edo, he took Dōeki with him.

Dōeki settled in the area of Bakurochō and rented a shop. Right from the start, his practice prospered and he was able to earn a living. But one night, that same man appeared to him in a dream and told him, “This is not a safe place. Relocate to Ichigaya within a day or two.”

As this was indeed what the man had told him in Nagasaki, he immediately went to Ichigaya and sought out so-and-so in the alley behind such-and-such shop. The man living there was greatly surprised and said, “Lately, Chanoki Inari has been giving me recurring dreams about you, telling me to look after you.”

The man inquired about suitable locations nearby, rented a plot of land near Ryūkeibashi, and arranged for Dōeki to set up his practice there. After a short while, a fire broke out in Bakurochō, and the place where he had previously lived burned to the ground. Dōeki’s faith in Inari grew ever stronger, and before long he was summoned to Tayasu, where he now practices medicine and is financially stable.

Dōeki’s wife—who witnessed Dōeki speaking face-to-face with a fox—told this story to my acquaintance Mochizuki.

Tonight’s tale is not so much scary as it is eerie. It echoes some themes that we’ve seen in several of this month’s tales so far, such as dying from smallpox, spooky calligraphy, and possible connections to past lives.

The part that shocks me most of all is the ending, where the parents just decide “OK” and leave their six year old daughter behind…

A Strange Tale of Affection

On the road from Kanda Myōjin to Ochanomizu, there was once an inn for boatmen and travelers. The proprietors had a daughter who turned six years old in the third year of the Bunka era (1806).

From the age of two or three, she took up the brush and could write characters as skillfully as an adult. Her parents showered her with affection. In time, they closed the boat inn and moved to the vicinity of Ryōgoku. People increasingly praised the girl’s handwriting.

During the smallpox epidemic in the third year of Bunka, the girl contracted smallpox and became gravely ill. Her parents were beside themselves with worry, and nursed her day and night, but their efforts were in vain, and her body began to give up. Her mother, overcome with grief, began to ramble like a madwoman, lamenting and pleading. The girl told her, “I will see you again in Kanda. Do not worry.”

Her mother repeated those words as if in a trance, but there was nothing else she could do. She carried her daughter’s lifeless body out into the field and laid her to rest, then spent her days prostrate with grief.

Among their acquaintances from Kanda who came to pay their respects, there was a family who had a daughter the same age as the girl. This daughter repeatedly said that she wanted to visit Ryōgoku, so her parents took her there and visited the old boat inn. However, once they arrived, the girl insisted that she would not return to her old home and said, “Please leave me here.”

Her parents could not fathom the reason for the request. However, to their astonishment, although the girl had never held a brush before, her handwriting was exactly the same as that of the girl who had died.

Everyone was astonished and could only wonder at this mystery. The girl’s parents tried to take her home to Kanda, but she refused, insisting, “I am the daughter of this household. I will not go back.”

There was nothing they could do. The girl was left behind in Ryōgoku, and her biological parents returned home. People all over town talked about this.

After the shock of this morning’s discovery of the surprise rule change by Japan Post and the stressful hours afterwards trying to figure out how this impacts the Kickstarter which we just started to fulfill, I almost decided not to post a painting today and just take a day off for mental health. Aside from how crushingly frustrating it is to have to notify backers of this huge disappointment, and to hit the brakes on shipping and screech all project momentum to a halt after we’ve been working towards Kickstarter fulfillment for over a year now, this also means that we probably have to close the yokai.com webstore to all US orders—right before the holiday sales season that makes up a huge percentage of our annual income. It’s layer upon layer of suck.

But today’s story from Mimibukuro is really dark and depressing, and if I didn’t spend the day painting, I would have been brooding and feeling miserable, yet unable to do anything to make things better. It’s odd; this tale is horrifically depressing, but somehow that sadness soothes, if just a little bit, my anger and disappointment at today’s news.

The type of monkey show depicted in this story is called sarumawashi, and is fairly common in Japan. I see monkey performances every year down by the river during festivals. Japanese macaques look and behave just like little people, and it is utterly captivating to watch them perform. There is an idiom in Japanese—猿は人間に毛が三筋足らぬ (saru wa ningen ni ke ga misuji taranu)—which means “a monkey is a person minus three hairs.” They are so alike us in every way, and we are so like them, that only three hairs separate us. That makes the tragedy in this story so easy to feel deeply.

Even Beasts Feel Deep Affection

In the fifth year of the Tenmei era (1785) in Sakaimachi, a large number of monkeys were brought together and made to perform in male and female kabuki roles. Their performances attracted a huge audience. I heard from some of the spectators that these monkeys had been well-trained to copy the spirit and mannerisms of the popular actors of the time, and their gestures and movements were highly amusing.

One of these monkeys had given birth to a baby, and as the baby grew it became thoroughly infested with lice, which caused it a lot of distress. The monkey trainer bathed the monkey to remove the lice and, to dry its wet fur, tied it to a clothesline on the second floor. However, a kite spotted the monkey and pecked it to death with its beak. The monkey trainer tried to chase the kite away and tend to the monkey, but his efforts were in vain.

The trainer called the monkey’s mother and consoled her, “You have worked hard for many years, and you have been an integral part of our family business. Seeing how much you loved this young monkey, I can only imagine how sad you must be. We never imagined a kite would come. It is so regrettable that we left the young monkey on the clothesline.”

The mother monkey cried and collapsed in grief. When the monkey trainer stepped away for a moment to do something else, the mother monkey tied one of the stage ropes to a roof beam and hanged herself.

People called this a sorrowful example of a mother’s love.

Tonight’s story is another tale about a hitodama. This one comes to us (by way of Negishi) from Hino Yoshū (a nickname of Hino Sukemochi), a samurai of the Hino clan and governor of Iyo Province—who was an eyewitness to this phenomenon. Yoshū is an alternative name of Iyo Province, and since he was governor there, this is where his nickname comes from.

The rowhouse mentioned in the story is a nagaya. These were really interesting compounds that were common in cities during the Edo period, and were somewhat similar to a modern apartment building. Each nagaya had several families living in it, as well as facilities like a shared toilet. The entrance to these compounds would have a gate where everyone’s name was posted (a precursor to today’s hyōsatsu), so you knew who lived there, and the gate would be locked at night for safety and to keep out strangers. They were not luxurious—in fact, the one-room homes were supplied without doors, and when you moved in one of the pieces of furniture that you brought with you would be a front door! There is a really great walk-through model in the Fukagawa Edo Museum in Tokyo (one of my absolute favorite museums) that recreates a section of old Edo and gives you a pretty good feeling of what it must have been like to live in one of these neighborhood complexes.

An Eyewitness Account of a Hitodama Manifestation

When Hino Yoshū was still a young man, a retainer in his household was suffering from a long-term illness and seemed unlikely to recover. Because this retainer had worked closely by Hino’s side and served him directly, Hino even went out to his rowhouse to check on his wellbeing.

One day, Hino went out riding. After dark, he summoned another retainer to accompany him to check in on his ailing retainer on his way back. At the gate of the sick retainer’s rowhouse they discovered a flame, slightly larger than a cigarette butt and resembling the wick of a candle.

“It is not good to have an open flame here. Let us stamp it out,” said Hino. However, as they watched, the flame began to rise and fall about one or two shaku (about 30 to 60 cm) at a time. Before long, it had climbed up to the eaves of the rowhouse and had grown to the size of a teacup.

They felt their hairs stand on end, so they hurried back inside. Sure enough, the retainer died that very night, according to Yoshū.