Tonight’s story is another more narrative one like last night’s. And even better, it has two yokai for the price of one! You don’t often hear stories about yokai working together to get something done, but there are a few stories like that. In this one, we have a team of yūrei + kitsune.

I enjoy that Negishi seems to have taken the time to investigate this mystery while he was in Edo. His final paragraph puts the story into a contemporary context, and while it doesn’t add anything to the story itself, it does make it feel more in touch with the times.

The Ghost Who Asked a Fox to Stop a Drinking Problem

In Sakuma-chō, Kanda, there lived a man named Mankichi who loved sake and drank morning and night. One time, he called his daughter and said, “Prepare five gō (one gō is 180 ml) of sake for me to drink.”

Knowing his preferences, she took down the sake warmer and went to the sake shop next door and had them pour five gō of sake. Then she warmed it up and gave it to her father. Her father was pleased and tried to pour it into his bowl, but he found there was not a single drop inside.

He called his daughter and demanded, “What is this?”

His daughter was greatly surprised. “I carefully watched them pour the sake, so that cannot be possible,” she said.

She took the sake warmer, and this time had them pour one shō (1.8 liters) of sake. She brought it home and immediately warmed it up and served it. When her father poured it into his bowl, once again there was not a single drop inside, leaving him in a terrible mood.

The daughter was astonished and said, “The other day mother appeared to me in a dream and said that your heavy drinking was bad for your health and bad for the family. She told me to watch carefully and get you to stop drinking. I tried to get you to stop, but you wouldn’t listen, so I didn’t press any further. Could this be why the sake disappeared?”

The father replied, “I also had such a dream, but I dismissed it as nonsense. However, if that is the case, I shall stop drinking.”

And so, for a time afterward, he did stop. Then, the sake flasks and jugs that had recently vanished reappeared. However, at a neighborhood meeting he once again broke his vow and drank. Once again, all of his sake utensils vanished, and his daughter began to act as if she was possessed and blurted out:

“The spirit of my late mother, grieved by your excessive drinking, asked a fox to help reprimand you. Since you broke your promise, I have decided to return and be your chaperone.”

The father was terrified, and he vowed, “I swear firmly that from this day forward I will abstain from alcohol!”

After that, the daughter quickly recovered from her madness.

According to rumor, at Heisaburō’s store in Asakusa Mototorigoe-chō, there is a fifty-three year old man named Mankichi. His current wife, Sugi, is forty; his son, Ichitarō, is twenty-five; and his daughter, Gin, is eighteen. It is said that his late wife, Ei, who died sixteen years ago, was always worried about Mankichi’s heavy drinking, and was always admonishing him. Gin became mentally ill around the end of this January, and as she rambled about various things, it became clear that Ei had possessed her. As a ghost, Ei couldn’t do anything herself, so people say she asked a fox to use its magical powers to admonish Mankichi. Although it’s a strange story, it has become the talk of the town, so I am recording it. While the kindness of the late wife was only natural, people laugh at how the fox she enlisted was also a kind one.

Although Negishi was stationed on Sadō Island and in Edo for most of the time he wrote Mimibukuro, his stories were collected from people who traveled all around Japan. Some of them were probably traders on kitamaebune who brought stories from all over the place. Tonight’s story is one from my hometown of Fukui, and the Asuwa River mentioned is very close to my home and one of my favorite walking paths. This story is not in Echizen-Wakasa Kidan, despite being from here; however it will probably make it into a future volume.

This story is also interesting because it is much more narrative and story-like than many of the others we have seen. This was clearly a fantastic legend that was told to Negishi, rather than a report of a strange incident, and his writing shows it.

The poem in the story took me several hours to translate. If you remember last year’s A-Yokai-A-Day I probably complained a lot about translating Japanese poetry. It’s so hard to do, without utterly destroying the meaning and the beauty of the poem. That is once again the case here, as the painfully short line —

暮每にとひ來しものをあすは川あすの夜波のあだに寄覽

— evokes so much imagery and symbolism, while leaving so much unsaid. Japanese and English are extremely different in this way. English is more strict about context and grammar than Japanese in a lot of ways, and that is especially clear in poetry. In Japanese you can drop off any part of the sentence that you don’t want or need, and the reader has to infer that part. That makes it possible to create short and simple poems with evocative language and a specific meter that still carry double or triple meanings. These kind of poems are used as battles of wits or challenges very often in stories.

There are two parts of this story that leave me unsatisfied. The first is that we never get to hear the lord’s reply poem! Since it caused the turtle to stop attacking, we have to assume it was a brilliant poem that both demonstrated that the lord understood the double/hidden meanings of the original poem, and that solved the problem in one way or the other and satisfied the turtle. What could it have been???

The second is that Genzō gets a pardon for his crime, and it is written off as not a malicious act. This of course is because the man he killed was not a samurai, and thus was not important enough to warrant a punishment for his murder. Yuck. But that’s how life was under the samurai…

The Strange Turtle in Asuwa River

In Echizen, in Fukui Domain, there lived a brave and bold man named something-or-other Genzō. Yet, it was precisely because of his bold nature that he was ordered to serve as a retainer and sent to Fukui.

In Fukui flows the Asuwa River. It is traversed by a large bridge called Tsukumobashi. A giant turtle lives in that river and it is said to sometimes snatch people.

Now, one day, when Genzō was crossing Tsukumobashi, he saw a truly extraordinary giant turtle on the riverbank. Genzō thought, “That must be the abominable man-eating turtle!” And he drew his sword, stripped naked, and dove into the river.

He easily slew the turtle, and he asked the nearby villagers to help pull it out of the water. “The shell I shall present to the lord, while the meat I shall take home and eat with sake,” he decided.

He ordered his attendant to prepare the turtle while he took a nap. His attendant thought deeply, “A turtle this large must be poisonous. It would be unwise to let my master eat it. I shall dispose of it in the river, and explain my reasons.” He immediately discarded the turtle and then told his master. Genzō flew into a rage and mercilessly cut the attendant down.

The lord declared that Genzō’s handling of the matter was inexcusable. Genzō was placed under arrest and confined to a single room. Though he was such a brave man, Genzō was afraid of the lord’s punishment and his spirit weakened. Late at night when he was lying in bed, someone came to him and recited a poem:

Every evening my lover came to me at Asuwa River, yet tomorrow night only the empty waves will wash ashore. Now my revenge will come every night.

Then he struck Genzō on the head. The pain was unbearable, so he got up, but nobody was there anymore. This happened two nights in a row, so Genzō prepared himself, and around the time the poem was recited, he lifted his head from the pillow and held the pillow out. The pillow was shredded into bits. Though he was greatly startled, word of this reached the lord.

The lord said, “What a strange thing. Genzō killed a male turtle, so perhaps this is a female turtle seeking revenge.”

Then he composed a reply poem, sealed it, and floated it down the Asuwa River. After that the vengeful spirit ceased its attack on Genzō.

From that day on, Genzō reformed his ways and became more earnest.

Declaring that it was not a crime of malice, the lord forgave Genzō’s offense, and Genzō safely returned to duty.

Tonight’s story is another pet story (don’t worry — I promise the rest of the stories this month are not all animal ones, although I do have a couple more animal stories to share that I like). But this one won’t make anyone shed tears (I hope) like the previous horse, cat, and rat stories. In fact, I hope this one gets you to laugh, just as I laughed out loud the first time I read it.

I’m not a cat person, but this story still ranks very high on my list of favorite Mimibukuro stories. Enjoy!

The Strange Cat

There was a certain samurai family living near Banchō who never kept any cats. When somebody asked the master of the house why this was, he told them the following:

“There is a reason for it, but it would not do if it were widely known, and so I don’t talk about it. Yet, since you ask me so persistently, I shall tell you.

“Back in my grandfather’s time, we had a cat that we kept for many years. One day, this cat pounced at two or three sparrows perched on the edge of the veranda. The sparrows flew away immediately, but the cat uttered in a child’s voice, ‘Darn it!’

“Startled, my grandfather jumped on the cat and pinned it down. He grabbed a fire poker and raised it up, then snarled with murderous rage: ‘You are a mere beast, yet you speak! How unnatural!’

“The cat replied, ‘But I never spoke a word until now!’

“My grandfather was so startled that his grip loosened, and the cat leapt away and was never seen again. This incident is the reason.”

From that day onward, it was decreed in this household that nobody would ever own a cat, and to this day they strictly adhere to the ban and do not keep cats.