Tonight’s story is told in first person, by Negishi, and centers around a member of his family. Maybe there’s some truth to the idea that those who speak of ghost stories invite ghosts to them… Or maybe he just always had ghosts on his mind so he tended to see them where others might not.

Often people will ask me if I believe in ghosts and yokai, since I write about them so much. I imagine Negishi must have had a similar experience. Probably many people he spoke to asked him if he actually saw any ghosts, or if he believed in their existence. We’ve already seen his skeptical side, in yesterday’s story. Today’s might be a glimpse of his more credulous side… or maybe he is just making entertaining story. Regardless, he doesn’t commit to saying anything for certain in this story, and I enjoy the open-ended finale of tonight’s story.

Of course believe in supernatural creatures was widespread during the Edo period, even though some of the more fantastic yokai like rokurokubi and nurarihyon were understood to be imaginary. One type of spirit that lingered strongly in people’s beliefs was the yakubyōgami — probably because its effects were far more visible than something like a kappa or a noperabō. People frequently died from disease, and in great numbers too, so it was obvious something was killing them — they just didn’t know what germs were yet. Beliefs in such spirits persisted well into the 19th century, as evidenced by all of the prophetic yokai legends and prints that appeared in that time.

So maybe Negishi can be forgiven for expressing a hint of supernatural belief in this story.

A Strange Encounter in Banchō

This happened when a member of my family, Ushioku, was in his prime. An urgent summons came from his watch duty companion. It was a stormy autumn night, and he was passing through the neighborhood of Banchō-Baba with one subordinate in tow. The rain was so heavy that there was nobody else on the road, and they had to shield their single paper lantern under a raincoat in order to keep it from being blown out. Just then, a figure resembling a woman was crouched by the roadside.

She wore something resembling a raincoat, but she carried no umbrella or hat. They couldn’t see clearly if it was a woman, and as they puzzled over it, they passed by the figure.

The attending samurai asked, “What could that be? Should we take a closer look?”

Ushioku replied, “It’s none of our business.”

Just then, two people looking like foot soldiers carrying lanterns came from a side street and went down the road Ushioku and his attendant had just traveled. They followed after the foot soldiers, but when they reached the place where the woman had been, nobody was there.

“This road is isolated on all sides; there is no way she could have gone anywhere…” they said to themselves as they returned to their original path.

They reached their destination, and as Ushioku approached the front gate, an intense chill came over him. The following day he came down with a terrible fever, and he was bedridden for twenty days. The samurai who accompanied him also suffered from chill and fever for about twenty days.

Was that woman perhaps a fever spirit revealing its form in the rain?

Well, I’m back from Kyoto, and while I am tired, I’m excited to share a new story with you all! Mononoke Ichi was a lot of fun as always, and it sounds like plans for even bigger future yokai events are being made at Uzumasa’s Toei Film Studio. I can’t wait for next year’s festival!

The event was so well attended that I barely had any time away from my booth, but I did manage to sneak away and take a few shots of yokai scattered throughout the park:

And some evening views of the park and vendor street:

Tonight’s story is especially fun because it’s both ghost story and a debunking of a ghost story. This reflects Negishi’s attitude to yokai and ghosts that he shows throughout Mimibukuro. He is cleary very skeptical of them, and sometimes even adds a few disclaimer-like sentences that show he is merely reporting what he heard, rather than reporting an actual ghost or yokai.

There is Truth Behind Ghost Stories

In the 6th year of Bunka (1809), the Year of the Snake, a glowing object that appeared every night on the embankment of Yanagihara became the talk of the town.

In the summer or fall of the previous year, there was an incident in which the fourteen year old daughter of Kahē of Kanda Konyachō was passing through the street during a rainstorm when some standing lumber toppled, and she was so surprised that she died from shock. Neighbors who went out at night to investigate the strange glow proclaimed it was the shadowy fire of her delusion left behind on earth.

However, if we examine the facts carefully, we establish that a man named Ichibē, who worked at the Saburōbē Store in the same area as a hairdresser, owned an earthen storehouse about 3.6 meters square. He painted its walls with a plaster mixed with ash and, due perhaps to the strong oils in that mixture, the light from the lanterns held by people passing by was reflecting off of the walls and causing the glow.

Perhaps the plaster had been applied unevenly beneath the eaves of the storehouse, so that when a lantern passed by the light would suddenly reflect brightly, and this effect was greatly exaggerated by all who talked about it.

Whether because of that, or perhaps because there was some other damage, repairs were recently made on that storehouse. Scaffolding was erected, mats were hung, and so on, and this ghostly rumor vanished immediately.

This weekend I am in Kyoto for the KaiKai Yokai Festival and Mononoke Ichi yokai market. And while I would love to be able to paint these two days, this festival is super busy and there’s just no way to operate a booth as well as complete a painting. So I’m scheduling this weekend’s posts in advance just to make sure you are all supplied with yokai while I am away on business! I’ll also have photos to share of the festival after I get back, but for now please enjoy this preview of my upcoming book, Echizen-Wakasa Kidan!

(And if you haven’t checked it out yet, visit my Kickstarter for the book and check out what great rewards you can get if you back this project!)

Tonight’s story is from A Daimio’s Government, by W. E. Griffis. This is a neat one, because it was recorded by one of the first foreigners in Japan! Griffis lived in Fukui for a time, and there is a memorial to him along the Asuwa River in the heart of the city. The fact that one of the earliest foreigners to arrive in Japan was stationed in Fukui is a testament to the high status Fukui had in Japan prior to the 20th century. Below is not my own translation, naturally, as Griffis wrote this in English. But I did make a couple of edits for clarity.

The Ghost of Ippaku

Matsudaira Tadanao was in his youth a brave warrior, one of the first to scale the walls of Osaka Castle when Iyeyasu besieged it in 1615. He killed many enemies with his own hands, but in his old age he became very wicked, and treated the people very cruelly. In the book called Echizen mei seiki kō, a general guidebook and gazetteer of the Province in twelve volumes, nothing to the detriment of the house of Echizen was allowed to be published, but the people held many traditions of his cruelty, which I learned from them. It is said that Tadanao when once out hunting saw high in the air the vision of a lovely woman which so fascinated him that he dispatched emissaries to all parts of Echizen to find the original. A woman of surpassing charms answering to his description was found walking in the fields, and was brought to the prince, and he made her his concubine. She proved to be a demon in female human shape, and prompted her lord to to do many of his wicked acts. He had an unnatural passion for hacking criminals and animals in pieces with his sword. His chief delight was to rip up pregnant women to discover the details of fetal life. In all these, and other villainies, his concubine Ippaku encouraged him. To this day the rude peasantry of Echizen believe the spirits of the dead warriors killed at Osaka revenged themselves by entering into this woman Ippaku, and sending her to tempt, deceive and curse the house of Echizen.

One mossy and overgrown part of Fukui Castle, kept always closed, was pointed out to me as the place where the ghost of Ippaku lurked. No one durst enter this. A few years ago, the people said, the prince sent a strong brave man to watch this gloomy nook at night. After long waiting, he saw at midnight, a lovely woman emerge from the tower, and face the damp and overgrown ramparts. Passing him, she said that she was the spirit of Ippaku, but that if he told anyone that he had seen her, he would shortly die. He then perceived her back was that of a hideous, slimy monster. The next morning, with loyal bravery, he related his experiences to his prince. A few weeks afterwards, he died. The common people and children believed that his death was caused by the spirit whose caution he had disregarded.

For his misgovernment, oppression, and wickedness, the shogun punished this first scion of the house of Echizen by reducing his revenue more than one half, leaving him but 325,000 koku, and assigning the other divisions of the province to subordinate daimyo.

This weekend I am in Kyoto for the KaiKai Yokai Festival and Mononoke Ichi yokai market. And while I would love to be able to paint these two days, this festival is super busy and there’s just no way to operate a booth as well as complete a painting. So I’m scheduling this weekend’s posts in advance just to make sure you are all supplied with yokai while I am away on business! I’ll also have photos to share of the festival after I get back, but for now please enjoy this preview of my upcoming book, Echizen-Wakasa Kidan!

(And if you haven’t checked it out yet, visit my Kickstarter for the book and check out what great rewards you can get if you back this project!)

This story comes from an 18th century book called Kimama no ki. The translation below is not the final version from the book; it is just a rough draft that will be refined before publication.

The Yamabushi of Takurayama
This took place in Keichō 8 (1603), during the construction of Echizen Kitanoshō Castle (later Fukui Castle). A large number of laborers went into Takurayama (in Minamiechizen-chō) to cut down timber for the castle’s main gate. Then, out of nowhere, five or six burly yamabushi came to manager Ogasawara Rihei’s cabin and asked for tea.

Then they said to Ogasawara, “What is the reason for cutting down these trees? We know that the trees found here, so deep in the mountains, cannot be harvested just anywhere. We have made pilgrimages all over the country and we know all the history of the mountains and rivers. Why don’t you stop cutting down these trees?”

Ogasawara thought to himself, “Yamabushi would not come so deep into the mountains at this time. These must be tengu.” He replied, “The reason we are cutting down these trees is none other than to use them as materials for the construction of the castle of our lord, Yūki Hideyasu. The castle is for the preservation and security of the entire province, and not for any personal gain.”

Hearing this, the yamabushi said, “If you are cutting these trees for such a purpose, then even if you have to cut down all the trees on this mountain, it must be done. I have nothing more to say to you.”

With that, they took their leave and climbed up the mountain. Ogasawara thought it was strange, and he followed them with his eyes as they disappeared into the shadows of the trees, but lost sight of them after a while. There were many people on the mountain as well, cutting timber, and they should have seen the yamabushi, but not even one of them did. Ogasawara’s son, Rihei II, was there with his father at that time, though he was a young child, and he later recounted that he had seen these yamabushi.

Tonight’s story features a yokai called a mōryō. I really like these guys, mostly because they have a creepy-cute, bunny-like appearance. Here is how Toriyama Sekien depicts them:

Mōryō are old spirits, going back to ancient China. They are nature spirits, inhabiting rocks, trees, stream, and mountains. They feed on human corpses, and a lot of folk religious ritual was originally developed to protect corpses from being stolen and eaten by mōryō.

What I love about this story is that it implies a complex world of spirits and monsters with its own society and structures. How did this mōryō know his time had come? Do they have some kind of yokai radio or text messages? Do they just know? Does someone tell them? What happens if they fail in their duty? There are so many questions raised that it ignites my imagination. Naturally, there are no answers given — so we are all invited to speculate on what they might be.

I also love that this mōryō has the courtesy to tell his employer of his duty, and the employer has the courtesy to grant him his leave. It’s all so formal and polite, and it just tickles me.

The Demon Servant

There was a certain man named Shibata who served as an accountant. Several years ago he was sent to Mino Province on official construction business, and before he departed he hired a manservant to accompany him. The manservant attended to him faithfully.

One night, after Shibata had retired for the night at an inn, at around midnight, while he was half-dreaming and half-awake, the manservant came to Shibata’s bedside and said:

“I am not a human. I am something called a mōryō. Something unavoidable has come up, and I must ask to take my leave.”

Shibata replied, “If it is something unavoidable, then I must grant you leave. But I would like to hear the reason.”

The manservant said, “I have a duty to steal the corpses of the deceased in turn. Now, my turn has come up, and I must steal the corpse of a certain peasant’s mother about one ri from this village.”

After saying this, the servant disappeared without a trace.

“What a silly dream,” thought Shibata, and he put it out of his mind.

When he woke the next morning, the manservant was missing. He asked around about the peasant’s mother from the village one ri away, and a person from that area told him, “We held her funeral today, but while on the road a dark cloud seemed to descend upon us, and then the corpse vanished from inside of the coffin!”

Upon hearing this, Shibata was utterly astonished.