Tonight’s story is the final tale from Shokoku hyakumonogatari! 100 tales from all over Japan, and 4 years of A-Yokai-A-Day posts culminate here. What a journey!
This is a great finale to this story collection. A tale about telling ghost stories, and a reward for those with the courage to stick it through. I love the attitude of the main character: “What a waste of time!” Angry that he was left all alone to finish the game himself, and he did. What a sport.
I also love his attempt to reason with the ghost: “Please pass on with just the Nenbutsu.” As if salvation were negotiable and controllable by the ghost who wants to be saved. I don’t know if that line is meant to be humorous, but I laughed at it.
So now that you’ve heard 100 ghost tales, what did you think of this story collection? And even though the book ends on a happy note, remember… there may just be a ghost creeping up behind you now!
How Telling One Hundred Ghost Stories Lead to Wealth and Honor
Near Gojō-Horikawa, Kyōto lived a man named Komeya Hachirōbē. He had ten children, his sixteen-year-old son being head of the household, and he had long been a widower.
One day he traveled to Ōtsu to buy rice, leaving his children to watch the house. “Mind the house well. I will return tomorrow,” he said as he departed.
That night, seven or eight neighborhood children gathered to play and they began a game of one hundred ghost stories. Before long, they had told forty or fifty tales, and one by one the children left. There were only two or three children left by the time they reached eighty or ninety tales, fear had overtaken them all and they went home, so that only the eldest son was left.
The eldest son thought, “The game of one hundred ghost stories is meant to test the strength of the ghosts. What a waste this has become. Therefore, I will finish the hundred tales by myself!”
He told the rest of the stories, and then went out back to pee. But something was in the garden, and it grabbed his leg firmly with a hairy hand. The eldest son, startled, shouted, “Who’s there? Show yourself!”
Just then it changed into a woman of seventeen or eighteen and said, “I am the former mistress of this house. I died during childbirth, and there was nobody to perform my funeral so I could not pass on. Please recite one thousand sutras for me.”
To this the eldest son replied, “My father is a poor man, and there is no way we could afford a thousand sutra memorial service. Please pass on with just the Nenbutsu.”
The woman replied, “In that case, I will bury gold coins beneath the persimmon tree behind the house. Please use them to perform my service.” Then she vanished into thin air.
The next day, Hachirōbē returned. When he heard the tale of what had happened the previous night, he said, “Well in that case…” and dug beneath the persimmon tree. There he found one hundred ryō in koban coins. He quickly retrieved them all, and he used them to perform a warm-hearted funeral for the woman. After that the Komeya family prospered, and became the foremost rice merchant in Shimogyō.
