Jealousy once again rears its ugly head! It’s a very common theme in Shokoku hyakumonogatari. In fact, tonight’s story contains quite a few repeated themes that we’ve seen throughout this book. But what I find more interesting is what it doesn’t say.

For one, why did the wife murder Momiji? It seems quite extreme, even for the most jealous person in the world, to murder someone just for being beautiful. After all, Momiji was just a maidservant. The wife could have easily fired her. And why, in the end, does Shume become a monk? If his wife murdered the maidservant, the proper thing for a samurai to do would be for Shume to put his wife to death as a murderer. And why does Momiji’s ghost appear with the lower half of her clothing soaked in blood?

These questions all point to an unsaid answer: that Shume was sleeping with Momiji and got her pregnant. This explains the bloodstained clothing; Momiji’s ghost appears in the form of an ubume — a ghost associated with pregnancy and childbirth. It also explains why the wife was upset enough to kill the girl. And, as Shume wasn’t innocent himself, he had no recourse to punish his wife, and instead he became a monk to atone for his own sins.

The Jealousy of Shibata Shume’s Wife

In Miyazu, Tango there was a man named Shibata Shume. His wife was a jealous woman, and she suspected that Shume had his eye on their beautiful maidservant Momiji. One time, after Shume went to Edo, she tossed Momiji into a well and then sealed her inside, killing her.

When Shume returned from Edo he asked his wife, “Why did you dig a new well?”

She answered him, “It suddenly collapsed so I had to dig a new one.”

“Where is Momiji?” asked Shume.

“She quit,” replied the wife.

Shume was suspicious, but he let the matter pass.

Shume had three children, but they suddenly became ill and within 40 or 50 days all three of them died. Shume and his wife were overcome with grief and endless sorrow. Around that time, Shume’s wife was pregnant, and before long she gave birth without incident. The child was a blessing in the middle of their grief, and they showered him with affection.

Before long, the child turned three years old. He suffered repeatedly from epileptic convulsions, and they tried all sorts of treatments, but none had any effect. A rōnin acquaintance of Shume’s knew of a skilled acupuncturist, and brought him to see the child. After the acupuncture treatment, the child recovered a little bit, so Shume asked him to stay the night.

Since it was summer, the rōnin and the acupuncturist hung up a mosquito net and left the area open while they talked. While they talked, they heard the sound of geta from the alley. When they checked to see who it was, they saw a girl. From the waist down, she was stained with blood; her body-length hair was standing on end; and her face was emaciated and blue-tinged. She stepped up onto the veranda. The acupuncturist nearly fainted, and cowered in the corner. The rōnin said, “Who goes there?”

“I am a maidservant who was employed by this house, but the lady of the house, in her jealousy, falsely accused me, murdered me, and buried me at the bottom of the well. I have already taken my revenge on three of her children, and now I have come to take her fourth. No matter how much money you spend on treating him, it will not won’t be enough,” replied the girl. Then she vanished into thin air.

At that moment, they heard a scream from the back room. When they went to check, they found that the child was already dead.

Afterwards, the rōnin told Shume everything that had happened. Shume was shocked, and he divorced his wife and became a monk himself.

Hey yokai lovers! I’ll be at Toei Kyoto Studio Park all day tomorrow for the KaiKai Yokai Festival. This is Kyoto’s greatest yokai festival of the year, and it’s come to define Kyoto’s Halloween celebrations in recent years. And it’s set in Uzumasa’s Edo period samurai film set, which puts the yokai right where they belong. You won’t want to miss this one!

Anyway, on to tonight’s story!

Retribution for Kicking a Three Trunk Cedar

A certain monk of the Tendai sect went on an ascetic pilgrimage across the country with his servant. They went from Edo to Nikkō, and on the way back his servant observed a three trunk cedar tree and said, “Is this lame cedar the one that I’ve heard so much about? There are tons of cedars just like it back in Kyōto.”

Then he kicked it and continued home.

That night, the servant began to tremble and babble all sorts of things as if he was possessed. When the monk saw this, he thought it must be the work of an evil spirit, and he performed the incantations and prayers he had learned in his Tendai training.

The servant babbled, “These prayers are so powerful that I can’t stand it! I’m leaving!”

The monk commanded, “Show yourself right away and then leave.”

The servant turned into a large stone buddha.

“No, no, show me your true form,” said the monk, and continued incanting.

The stone became a 3 meter tall priest with a single eye in its forehead.

“This is not your true form either,” said the monk, and he prayed even harder.

The giant priest became a 30 meter long snake with a single 150 centimeter long horn.

“If you won’t show me your true form, then I will show you what will happen!” said the monk. And he beat the snake with the large square bead on his rosary.

“Okay, I am leaving! But my female form has tainted his body so you must wash him!”

“Then I will perform ablutions,” said the monk, and he washed the servant’s body in hot water.

Before long, the servant said, “Alright, I’m leaving now. I won’t come back after this. It’s because he kicked me. I’m telling you, your prayers are too strong. Goodbye.”

Then the snake turned into a 16 or 17 year old girl, and she left out the back door. Immediately, the servant returned to his senses.

Tonight’s story is rather short, but it is one of the more disturbing ones in Shokoku hyakumonogatari. The final sentence is an example of a feature I love in Japanese foklore, and a way of ending the story that pops up from time to time in this book. It’s the way stories are presented generally without much embellishments or meandering, and get straight to the story. “I heard this from so-and-so,” or “everybody knows this fact,” add a sense of authenticity to these ghost tales — to let you know that these are not stories made up on the spot by the author just to scare you, but creepy stories that were collected and passed down as if they were factual events. The starkness of these stories contrasts a lot with English language horror, which often overflows with descriptors and adjectives that are meant to evoke a mood but don’t add much to the story. These feel stripped down by comparison, but the horror also feels more raw. I prefer it this way.

The Wife of Matsumotoya Kyūbei of Wakayama, Kishū

In Wakayama, Kishū there was a man named Matsumotoya Kyūbei. He lived an affluent life, but he unexpectedly became ill and died. His wife remarried, and her new husband succeeded Kyūbei as his heir. As the years passed, Kyūbei’s daughter grew into a young woman with beautiful features, and her step-father became obsessed with her and, against all propriety, slept with her.

The wife learned of this, but out of concern for public appearances she told nobody, despite the pain it caused her morning and night. Yet before long, everybody found out about it and mocked her husband, calling him a beast. The wife grew sick living with the thought of this, and she died.

Her daughter, glad that her mother was finally out of the way, made all of the proper funeral arrangements, and in preparation to bury her mother’s corpse at dawn, set the casket in the sitting room that night.

Around midnight, the wife got out of the casket, looked around, and then went to the room where her daughter and her husband were sleeping. She bit out her daughter’s throat, then climbed back into the coffin.

Everybody said it was an inevitable outcome. They held a combined funeral for the mother and daughter. Afterwards, the family fell into ruin and perished. A merchant who happened to be there at the time and saw everything came to Kyōto and told this story.

Tonight’s yokai is another daija — a word that covers serpentine creatures all the way from large snakes to dragons. I’m always torn over how to paint these — more snake-like, or more dragon-like? The images in Shokoku hyakumonogatari tend to favor dragon-like depictions, as you can see in the original illustration for this story:

How Baba Kurōzu Defeated a Daija

In Kyūshū there was a rōnin named Baba Kurōzu. He hoped to serve Hosokawa Sansai, but so far his desire had gone unmet.

One day, he went river fishing with four or five men, and along the edge of a certain mountain they found a roughly 1.1 square kilometer marsh. They cast their nets into this and began to relax, when all of a sudden a great roar was heard from the marsh. Smoke began to billow out of it, and then some unknown thing came straight towards them. Everyone was startled and fled. Kurōzu was not the least bit afraid, and he wanted to see what it was no matter what. When he investigated, he discovered a six meter long serpent. Kurōzu thought he would catch the serpent, so he leaped at it, but the serpent coiled itself around Kurōzu and pulled him into the marsh.

The men who fled told everyone about how Kurōzu had been taken by the serpent, and everyone of high and low rank was talking about this story.

Three days later, around noon, Kurōzu came out of the marsh. All of the water in the marsh was stained with blood. When the nets were pulled out, inside of them was the six meter long uwabami, slain by Kurōzu and cut into seven or eight pieces.

Sansai saw this and declared, “Kurōzu is a real warrior.” And he awarded him a salary of 3000 koku. To this day, it is said, his descendants are still serving in Kyūshū.