Tonight’s story features an onryō, the most terrifying of Japanese ghosts. Fans of yokai folklore might even think this story sounds somewhat familiar. There’s a clear connection to one of Japan’s most famous ghost tales, Sarayashiki. Everything from the ghost’s name (Kiku), to the setting (Himeji castle; mentioned later on in the story), to the absolutely cruel treatment of the serving girl, culminating in throwing her down a hole to her death (or a well). Despite the many similarities, this story is different enough that it still feels like a fresh version and not just a retelling.

There are a few parts of this story that were hard to translate, because they breezed over things that begged for more explanation. One part is the various types of torture that Kiku had to endure. The story lists water torture, the torture of the iron bars, the wooden horse, and the torture of the old tree without describing what those are. So just to quickly go over them:

• Water torture includes several unpleasant things, from splashing her with cold water, to holding her head underwater, to wrapping cloth around her face and pouring water over her (i.e. waterboarding).
• The torture of the iron bars involves binding a person’s hands and legs with heavy iron bars and then adding weight to crush them, or twisting them. It’s pretty gruesome.
• The wooden horse involves straddling someone on top of a pointed wooden device and weight their limbs down and letting gravity work its horrors. Yuck.
• And the torture of the old tree is hanging someone upside-down from a tree. From this position you can either beat them like a piñata or allow gravity to make the blood pool in their head and eventually kill them. Choices!
• Lastly, dripping soy sauce into the open wounds is pretty self explanatory. I’m not sure whether the boiling part or the salt in the wounds part would hurt more, but it is exceptionally cruel.

No wonder the girl becomes an onryō!

My favorite part of this story, though, is easy to miss. The appearance of the elderly servant at the end of the story, who orders the younger footmen to pay the girl’s cab fare. At first I wondered why one of the high ranking servants, basically the majordomo, would tell the doormen to pay double the fee for some random, unexpected woman. But the key is in his age: this man is old enough that he has served four generations of Shuri’s family. That is to say, he has witnessed every single member of Shuri’s family for four generations fall pray to Kiku. He knows what’s up, he knows the curse, and he knows there’s nothing that can be done to stop her. So he just tells them to pay the fare, and he alone knows what is coming next. Chilling!

So with that in mind, enjoy this creepy tale!

The Ghost of Kiku, Maidservant of Kumamoto Shuri

Kumamoto Shuri was an exceedingly wicked and cruel man. When he was serving at the castle, he became furious when he discovered a pin in his food, and he called his maidservant Kiku to him.

“Who ordered you to do such a thing? Tell me the truth. If you don’t tell me I will beat it out of you!”

Kiku was astonished. She said, “Oh my, I’ve made a terrible mistake. Earlier, I was sewing a kimono and I tucked the needle into my hair. It must have fallen out and into your food. I did not intend for such a thing to happen. And I was not ordered by anyone to do it. It was a simple mistake, so please forgive me.”

To which Shuri replied, “So you want to argue? Then I shall torture you.”

First he used water torture. Second was the torture of the iron bars. Third was the wooden horse. Fourth was the torture of the old tree. Fifth, he cut open her back and poured boiling soy sauce into the wounds.

However, all Kiku said was, “There’s nothing more that I can say except what I already told you. Please, just fire me!”

To which Shuri replied, “I see I have been too lenient in my punishments as you will not confess.”

He ordered the peasants to bring two or three thousand snakes, then he dug a hole and put Kiku in it, and had the snakes released into the hole.

Kiku told the other servants, “It seems I will not survive this. Please, at least call my mother and let me say goodbye to her.” They pitied her, and called Kiku’s mother and arranged for them to meet.

Upon seeing Kiku’s condition, her mother looked up at the heavens and fell to the ground, and cried out, “In order to serve the samurai we have been prepared for a lot, but to this kind of torture as a source of amusement?! When you die, come back as an onryō and take revenge for this! Never forget it!”

Kiku replied, “Be at ease. I will bear this grudge not just against Shuri’s entire family, but against seven generations of his family! If you don’t believe me, plant sesame seeds in front of the place where I die. They will sprout within three days. Consider this as proof. Now I am free. Goodbye.”

And with that, she bit off her tongue and died.

Kiku’s mother was anxious, and so she planted sesame seeds as instructed. As promised, they sprouted within three days. And sure enough, on the third day, Kiku appeared to Shuri and declared her grudge, listing all of the ways he had wronged her. Then she said, “I’ll be back,” and left.

After that, Shuri began to babble incoherently, spouting confessions of all the evil things he did and acting like a madman. On the seventh day, he died. After that, Shuri began to haunt his descendants to death.

Shuri the 4th served under Matsudaira Tadaaki at Himeji in Harima Province. Kiku’s ghost appeared before a packhorse driver on a road about 8 km away and said, “I am traveling to Shuri’s estate and would like to borrow a horse.”

The horse driver assumed she was just an ordinary person and refused, saying, “It is almost night, and the way home will be long.”

“I will pay extra,” said Kiku. She offered him 160 mon – double the normal price of 80 mon.

When they arrived at Shuri’s estate, Kiku got off the horse and went inside, and the horse driver asked the servants for payment.

“What are you talking about? You didn’t have anybody on your horse!” said the servants.

The horse driver replied, “Just now I brought a lady here. You have to pay her fare!”

As they argued, a voice came out of nowhere. It was Shuri’s elder servant, ordering them to pay the horse driver: “Kiku has come back. Pay the 160 mon fare.”

After that, Shuri suddenly became ill and, possessed by Kiku, began to babble about the various ways in which she had been wronged by his ancestor. On the seventh day he died.

For four generations, they tried various prayers and exorcisms, but none were effective; each time that a successor was named, Kiku came and killed him.

The yokai in tonight’s story is a fan favorite: the two-tailed version of a bakeneko, known as a nekomata. In a way it’s almost a touching story, about a pet who loves its master so much that it would do the unthinkable. On the other hand, it’s equally horrifying. Why make up such a lie? What were the cat’s long-term plans? Was the cat behind the wife’s death in the first place? Knowing that this was a nekomata, all sorts of nefarious answers pop into mind… In any case, go hug your pets!

The Nekomata That Changed into Itō Genroku’s Wife

In Shinobu, Oshū, there was a man around 20 years old named Itō Genroku. He was a skillful man with a kind heart, and people came from all over to ask him to become their son-in-law.

He heard that a certain person in the same province had a beautiful daughter, so he invited her to come and be his wife. But while they fell deeply for each other, the new wife caught a slight cold and ended up dying. Genroku was deeply grieved; he shut himself away in his home and never left, spending all of his time pining for his wife.

One day, a friend of his named Takeuchi Hyōe came to give his sympathy for Genroku’s pain. He entered Genroku’s room, they talked for a while, and then he left; but something troubled him about Genroku’s condition, so he secretly reached out to Genroku’s parents and said, “There’s something strange about Genroku’s condition, so please check in on him every night.”

That night, Genroku’s parents creeped close to Genroku’s bedroom and listened. In the early hours of the morning, after everyone had gone to bed, they heard an unknown woman’s voice speaking affectionately to him. Genroku’s parents were astonished, and when morning came they called Hyōe and told him about the intimate conversation they heard.

“I thought so…” said Hyōe. They summoned Genroku to his parents’ room and spent the night drinking and merrymaking, while Hyōe went to Genroku’s bedroom and waited. Sure enough, in the early hours of the morning after everyone had gone to sleep, a woman’s voice came out of nowhere and said affectionately, “I’m here.”

Hyōe hid underneath the blankets. The woman said, “Why don’t you speak to me tonight? Are you angry because I am late? I arrived late because I ran into some trouble.” She begged him for forgiveness and pulled back the covers to climb into bed. Hyōe looked up and saw that her mouth was split open from ear to ear and she had horns sprouting from her head, but her black penciled-on eyebrows, red and white makeup, and styled up bangs looked exactly like Genroku’s wife.

Hyōe said, “I’ve got you!” He seized her and stabbed her with both of his swords. Their fight was so chaotic that the noise made people light lanterns and come to see. In the lantern light, Hyōe was able to overpower her, and he stabbed her over and over. Upon closer inspection, it was Genroku’s pet cat of many years.

When Hyōe told what happened to Genroku, Genroku was astonished and grateful. He explained, “Seven days after my wife died, she appeared to me and said, ‘I was resurrected by Lord Enma, under instruction that for one hundred days we must tell nobody about this. During that time, I will visit you in secret. You must not let anybody know about this!’ Until now, I kept everything under wraps. So, it turns out she was a nekomata… Thanks to you, Hyōe, my life was saved.”

Tonight’s story once again deals with the topic of attachment, as in the Buddhist sin of improper attachment to others. And like several stories we’ve read so far, it uses snakes as a symbol of that attachment. In this case, the suffering caused by attachment is pretty extreme, and it’s hard not to feel sorry for the father.

The Tumors of Heirokuzaemon of Shimōsa Province’s Father

In a place called Yokkaichi in Usui, Shimōsa Province, there was a man named Heirokuzaemon. One time an itinerant monk came to his place and asked for lodging. Although he had asked for a room, the monk stayed up all night long reciting the Lotus Sutra without sleeping. Throughout the night, he heard something moaning, “Look… Look…” on the other side of a shōji partition.

The monk was bewildered. In the morning he asked Heirokuzaemon, “Do you have a puppy in the other room? Something was moaning all night long.”

Heirokuzaemon replied, “I am ashamed, but as you are a monk let me tell you. The one who was moaning is my father. For more than twelve years he has been suffering. First he developed a tumor on his right shoulder, then he developed a similar tumor on his left shoulder, and after that a large hole appeared in each of them. When he looks to his left, the right tumor says, ‘Look this way!’ Whenever he looks to his right, the left tumor says, ‘Look this way!’ He is tormented day and night by these boils telling him, Look this way! Look this way! so that he has spent the last twelve  years squatting with his hands on the floor, looking left, then looking right, over and over again. For the first five or six years I tried to help him with medical treatments and exorcisms, but they had no effect, so for the last five or six years I’ve just left him there.”

The monk listened, and then replied, “Let me meet him.”

“Very well,” said Heirokuzaemon, and he brought the monk to his father.

“Tell me about when these tumors first appeared,” said the monk to the father.

The father said, “I am ashamed to tell you this. When I was younger, I laid with a servant girl. Heiroku’s mother was the most jealous woman in the world, and she strangled the servant girl to death. Not three days after the servant girl was killed a tumor appeared on my right shoulder. Seven days after that Heiroku’s mother died, and not three days after that a tumor appeared on my left shoulder. Both tumors tell me, ‘Look this way! Look this way!’ and if I refuse even once, the pain becomes so unbearable, like being strangled to death. For the past twelve years they have been ordering me to look at them without rest.”

The monk listened carefully and replied, “Then, let me say a prayer for you.” He uncovered the father’s shoulders, sat behind him, faced the tumors, and recited the Lotus Sutra. Doing so, a tiny snake stuck its head out of the hole in the right tumor. The monk recited faster and with pausing, and soon the snake’s head stuck out nine centimeters. Holding the sutra in his hand, the monk pulled the snake out of the hole. Then he turned towards the left tumor and recited the sutra, and a snake stuck out its head just like before, so holding the sutra in his hand, he pulled that snake out of the hole. He constructed two burial mounds for the snakes, recited prayers over them and mourned them.

Afterwards, the tumors healed and the holes closed up. Both father and son were overcome with gratification. It is said that everyone in this area became devout believers in the Lotus Sutra.

Tonight’s story is a classic ghost story. The ghost has all of the standard elements: the white kimono, the disheveled, long hair, blackened teeth; and she visits every night and stares into the window! Ooh, I just got chills!

I especially love the nonchalant response by Tōshirō at the end. “Oh yeah, that’s my wife.” And Kyūan noping right out of there and back to Kyoto is icing on the cake.

Fantastic! Enjoy this one.

The Ghost of Shimazu Tōshirō’s Wife

A man named Shimazu Tōshirō from Owari Prefecture was a disciple of Shundō and a great reciter of noh, and frequently performed in front of audiences. One of his friends was a man from Tsu in Ise named Kyūan, who frequently constructed gardens. He was Tōshirō’s best friend, and one day he visited him in Owari to talk about the good old days.

It was the middle of June, and they hung up a mosquito net and told stories late into the night, and before long Tōshirō fell asleep. Kyūan wasn’t yet able to fall asleep when he saw a woman around 40 years old, with disheveled hair as long as her body, blackened teeth, and a white kimono gazing longingly through the lattice window. Kyūan thought for sure that this woman must be Tōshirō’s longtime mistress, so he pretended not to notice her, and by dawn she was nowhere to be found.

The following night the same thing happened. Kyūan, filled with uneasiness, waited impatiently for dawn to break. In the morning he told Tōshirō everything that had happened. “Clearly you have an arrangement with this woman to come and see you at night. From tonight on, I will sleep in a separate room,” he said.

Tōshirō replied, “This is an embarrassing story, but I will tell you. When I was in Kyōto I had a fling with a woman, and I ended up I bringing her back home with me, and we were together for three years. However, one day she became sick and died. Yet she still visits me from time to time, as if her attachment to me remains.”

Kyūan was astonished. He was originally going to stay for two or three more days, but he suddenly packed up and said goodbye, and returned to Ise.

Kyūan passed away in the Kan’ei period (1624-44).

Tonight’s story deals with a common theme in Shokoku hyakumonogatari: obsession. The Japanese word used in these stories is 執心, and it refers to the kind of improper infatuation or devotion that comes from an attachment to worldly things–whether a person, or an object, or otherwise. It’s one of the worst sins in Buddhism; in fact, it is said to be the root cause of all suffering. It’s what powers the wheel of reincarnation and causes life forms to be reborn over and over again in an endless cycle of suffering. So it’s no wonder that it comes up in folklore a lot, and is blamed to be the cause of yokai or other supernatural phenomena.

In this book, obsessive attachment frequently takes the form of snakes or dragons, but it also frequently appears as a ghost of the deceased, or in the form of a mysterious illness. This story depicts it as a snake, and in an almost comical way. The visual of this snake leaping out of the bushes and wrapping itself around the man’s neck over and over made me laugh out loud the first time I read this story.

How a Woman’s Obsession Became a Snake in Tōsa Province

In Tōsa Province there was a man who made his living through hunting. He was 40 years old, and his wife was 45 or 46, but she was famously jealous and she always followed him whenever he hunted. One day when he went hunting, his wife followed him as usual, but she was annoying him so much that he grabbed her, pulled her close to him, and stabbed her to death. At that moment, a large snake came out from the roots of a big tree nearby and coiled itself around the man’s neck.

The man drew his sword and rapidly stabbed the snake, but it kept coming back and coiling itself around him. The man had no choice but to make a pilgrimage to Kōyasan. About halfway up the Fudōzaka slope, the snake let go of his neck and dropped into the grass. The man was so happy that he stayed on Kōyasan for one hundred days, and then, thinking that that was the end of it, he descended the mountain. Halfway down the Fudōzaka slope, the same snake creeped out of the grass and once again wrapped around the man’s neck.

The man was at his wit’s end, and decided to make a pilgrimage to Kantō. He set out immediately, boarded a boat at Ōtsu, and headed out to sea. However, the boat became stuck and would not budge forwards or backwards.

The boatman said, “If anyone among the passengers has any idea what is going on, whatever it may be, speak the truth! Many people are suffering for the sake of one man.”

The man had no choice. He removed the cloth from around his neck and showed the snake to everyone, saying, “Surely this is the problem.” He explained his story to the passengers and confessed his sin.

The passengers were shocked. They scolded the man and demanded, “Get off of the boat immediately!”

“That is all I can do now,” said the man, and he threw himself off of the boat and drowned. After that, the snake uncoiled from his neck and swam towards Ōtsu. The boat arrived safe and sound at Yabase, according to the boatman.

Tonight’s story deals with a yūrei, or a ghost. We’ve seen a few horrific monsters so far, but, while there is no shortage of terrifying ghost stories, tonight’s story is more on the eerie side than the scary side. Sandayū is quite lucky, in fact, because just two days ago we had another story about a man sleeping with a ghost, and that one turned out poorly for the main character…

How Sandayū From Chikuzen Province Slept With a Yūrei

There was a merchant from Chikuzen Province named Sandayū. Every year he brought goods to Ōsaka to sell, and he would stop at Amagasaki and stay at an inn called Akitsuya.

One of the servants at Akitsuya was a girl named Sasa, and the innkeeper always sent her to Sandayū’s room to be his companion for the night. This continued for several years, but then for some reason Sandayū did not visit Amagasaki for a long time.

Several years later, he went to Ōsaka and once again stayed at Akitsuya. The innkeeper served him a variety of foods and sake, and then jokingly said, “If only Sasa were here…” Sandayū figured that Sasa must have gone out on an errand, and since it was getting late, he hung his mosquito net and went to bed alone.

In the middle of the night, he thought he saw a person climb into the mosquito net; it was Sasa. Sandayū was delighted and said, “It’s been such a long time! Where were you during the day?”

Sasa replied, “I don’t work here anymore. You must never tell anybody that I came here tonight.”

Sandayū wondered if she quit because she did not like it there anymore, or if she maybe got married. He asked her all sorts of things, but she would not give him any details. So, they spent the night in heartfelt conversation, reminiscing about the past and imagining the future, and before long it was almost dawn.

“It is time for me to go,” said Sasa, and she got up to leave. Sandayū, sad to see her go, gave her a white, single-layer kimono as a keepsake. Sasa thanked him, cloaked herself in the kimono, and then went out the front door.

Sandayū, filled with concern, followed afterwards, and saw her heading west out of Amagasaki. He thought she was headed towards Nishinomiya, but instead she went towards Naniwa, and then by the banks of a river she vanished into thin air.

That morning, Sandayū asked the innkeeper, “Where is Sasa living now?”

“That’s the thing…” replied the innkeeper. “Sasa died of a light illness this past spring. On her deathbed, you were all that she talked about.”

Sandayū was shocked. “Well now, I have a strange story…” he said. And he told the innkeeper what happened the previous night.

The innkeeper was also shocked and said, “Take me to where you saw Sasa disappear!”

So Sandayū took the innkeeper along the same route, and they found the graveyard where Sasa was buried, and the white kimono hanging from her grave. The two men felt a sense of wonder, and they made offerings for her spirit.

Afterwards, Sandayū inherited his father’s position and became a servant of Lord Kuroda Uemon. Nowadays, everybody knows about this.