As I mentioned, the Mononoke Ichi yokai market and hyakki yagyo night parade was yesterday in Kyoto. This was the first night parade since the covid pandemic, and it was the first Mononoke Ichi since Japan’s borders reopened to tourists last week, so it felt like a major milestone. I had an awesome time meeting many yokai fans from around the world, so thanks to everyone who stopped by!

The night parade was truly a spectacle. It felt like a traditional matsuri parade, with drums, bells, and flutes—except that it was populated by the most amazing yokai costumes ever. If you’d like to see what it looked like, I strongly recommend looking at the photos and videos on Twitter posted under the #モノノケ市 hashtag!

How Kurita Genpachi Slew a Bakemono

In a village called Tomo in the province of Bingo there was a man named Kurita Genpachi. One day, while he was playing a grassy field behind his house. Perched up in the branches of a large chestnut tree, he a woman of about 60 years of age, with blackened teeth and disheveled white hair flying in all directions, was looking at Genpachi and grinning at him. Genpachi was startled and quickly walked away, feigning indifference.

That night was bright, and the moon shone everywhere, so Genpachi went out onto his veranda to gaze at the sky. For some reason, something made him feel uneasy, so he went inside and closed the shoji doors. He lay in bed in a daze, not quite a sleep but not quite awake, when he saw the figure of the old woman from earlier in the day silhouetted on the shoji in the moonlight. Words cannot describe the unsettled he felt.

Genpachi was startled, and readied to draw his sword and strike down the woman if she came into the room. She was already opening the shoji doors and started to enter the room, when Genpachi shouted “I’m ready for you!”

He drew his sword and slashed at her. The bakemono seemed to weaken a bit when it was slashed, but Genpachi also fainted and fell as if dead.

When Genpachi had swung with his sword he screamed, “Agh!” Several people heard this and came out to see what happened. They found Genpachi lying on the floor breathless. They administered some medicine and revived him. When he came to his senses, he told them everything that had happened.

Today I am in Kyoto attending the Mononoke Ichi flea market and hyakki yagyo night parade. It’s been 3 years since the last time this event took place and the last time I went; coronavirus put it on hold. So it’s great to finally be back and attending one of the coolest yokai-themed festivals in Japan!

Tonight’s story takes place in Tsuruga, which is only about one hour from my home. In fact, I drove through Tsuruga on the way to Kyoto to get to this festival. I made sure not to use the toilet though, just to avoid any bōrei or henge.

The Bōrei of Tsuruga Province

A traveler staying at in inn in Tsuruga Province went to the outhouse late one night. Looking out the window, he saw a woman in a white kimono hanging around the back door, looking dejected in the hazy moonlight.

The traveler grew suspicious and watched her for a while, but she did not go inside. He grew even more suspicious. He left the outhouse and approached the woman, but then she utterly vanished. Surely she was a henge of some sort, he thought. He went back to his room without telling anyone and went to sleep.

When dawn broke, the traveler saw the innkeeper kneeling before an altar and making an offering of incense. He turned to the traveler and said, “Today is the anniversary of my wife’s death. And last night in my dreams, I vividly saw her come here and loiter at the back door!” Then he burst into tears.

The traveler told me that he didn’t have the heart to tell the innkeeper what he had seen.

Tonight’s story is very short and, if I’m being honest, doesn’t translate too well into English. In Japanese, the language is creepy and evocative, but translated into English the phrasing doesn’t have to same power that it does in Japanese.

First of all, toilets are something that appear actually several times in Shokoku hyakumonogatari. Nowadays it’s hard to imagine toilets as a scary place. Disgusting, sure. But scary? Actually, the reason they turn up so frequently in Japanese ghost stories is that during the Edo period, toilets were a pretty terrifying place!

The word commonly used for toilets in Shokoku hyakumonogatari is secchin. It refers to a pit toilet that was in a separate building detached from the main house. You can see a diagram in this link. Imagine yourself in the period these stories take place. You wake up in the middle of the night and need to use the toilet. There is no electricity, but if you’re lucky the moon might be bright enough to see where you’re going. You have to go outside in your pajamas, walk across your garden (even in the snow or rain), and climb into a pitch black chamber with no heating or light to do your business. If the moon is bright or you have a candle, you might see any number of creepy crawlies waiting for you: bats, mice, snakes, spiders, millipedes, centipedes—all things you don’t want anywhere near your nether regions. Not to mention yōkai. So it’s pretty easy to see why these are common locations for yōkai stories.

Another unfamiliar concept in tonight’s story is the word kasshiki. I debated whether to translate this as “page boy” or “attendant,” but it is more specific than that. A kasshiki was a serving boy at a Zen temple (equivalent to the chigo of Tendai temples). These were very young boys, far too young to enter the priesthood or do heavy work that other novices would do. They helped out with certain duties, such as serving food and announcing meal times. (The word kasshiki literally means “meal announcer.”) They were also dressed up by their masters in beautiful clothing and makeup, and used as catamites by high ranking priests. In that way, they were symbols of idealized beauty and were kind of like child idols. Kasshiki is also the name of one type of noh mask, identifiable by its distinctive hair style.

This imagery creates the eerie mood of the story. A kasshiki would be the last thing you’d expect to see hanging around an outhouse late at night, and being laughed at and mocked by one would be quite shocking on top of the already dreadful outhouse itself. My culture notes ended up being longer than the story itself, but hopefully this helps explain some of the story elements that give this short and simple story a bit of a punch.

The Bakemono in the Outhouse

A man was going to the outhouse when a beautiful young kasshiki approached him, took one look at the man, and then burst out in eerie laughter.

The man was startled, and then hurriedly stood up and fled the outhouse. He ran to the first person he saw and tried to explain, “This… this…” But at that very moment, from inside the outhouse, came the sound of a young man’s voice cackling wildly. The man dropped dead instantly.

People tried various medicines and methods to save the man, but they could not revive him. Everybody thought this was very strange.

One thing I love about the stories in Shokoku hyakumonogatari is that they can be so specific about the locations these stories take place. Some of them go right down to the neighborhood, street, and even extremely specific places. It makes them feel more real and close to us when you can literally visit and stand in the spot these events are said to have happened in.

This story in particular takes place very near my home, at a temple called Eiheiji. It’s an important place in Fukui, for sightseeing and historically. Knowing this story takes place there, and that the other locations mentioned in the story are real places, really adds some weight to the tale.

The Novice Monk at Eiheiji in Echizen

At the Zen temple Eiheiji in Echizen Province, there was a young and beautiful novice monk. One day he visited the capital to see all of the famous and historic sights. On his trip back home, he stopped at an inn. A woman was lodging at the same inn. Upon seeing the beauty of the young novice, she waited until nightfall and then slipped into his room and started to flirt with him.

At first the monk resisted the woman, but after all he was a living, breathing person, and in the end they slept together.

When dawn broke, he looked over at the woman lying next to him. She looked to be a priestess about 60 years old, with snow-white hair, and an appearance that was utterly repulsive. The novice monk was completely turned off. The woman looked back at him and said, “Wherever you go, I will accompany you.”

And so, she followed him from inn to inn, sleeping in his bed at every stop. The novice was troubled. He wondered just how much his masters would punish him if he brought a woman back with him to the temple.

“I am exhausted today. Let’s stop here,” he lied to the woman. Then, when she slept, he crept out into the night. He made it as far as Shirakicho.

When dawn broke, the woman was horribly upset. Since she was a priestess, she took out her prayer beads and used them to divine the young monk’s whereabouts. She followed him all the way to Shirakicho, where she asked around if anyone had seen him. In the end, she found him crouched down in a hollowed-out tree trunk.

“Well, well, well! You cold and heartless person! You will take me with you for as long as you have life!”

There was nothing the monk could do to stop her. “Fine. Let’s go then.”

They went together to the river and boarded the ferry boat. Halfway across, he pushed the woman off of the boat and into the river. He finished the crossing alone and then hurried back to Eiheiji.

By the time he returned to the temple, he was utterly exhausted. He collapsed in the large reception hall and fell asleep.

When his master entered the reception hall, he saw a 30-meter-long giant serpent trying to swallow the sleeping novice. Suddenly, the young monk’s family heirloom Yoshimitsu-forged sword magically leaped out of its scabbard by itself, flew through the air, and slashed at the serpent, chasing it away.

The master gently woke the sleeping novice up, but he said nothing about what just happened. Then he secretly swapped the novice’s heirloom blade with a golden sword that a recently deceased parishioner had donated to the temple, taking the Yoshimitsu for himself.

Soon after, the snake returned. Because the young novice no longer had the Yoshimitsu sword, the snake easily tore him into pieces and gobbled them up.

Since it was the master’s fault the young novice lost his life, all of the people scorned and mocked him after that.

Our yōkai tonight is another bōrei, or ghost, although not in the traditional sense of a spooky white dead person who hunts you down and kills you. This story tells more about the lingering effects a ghost might have on an area, and how customs have been built up around them.

One notable feature of this story is the outfit the woman wears while swimming. In order to keep her candles from snuffing out in the water, she ties them to her head like a hat. This is very much a familiar allusion to ushi no koku mairi, a powerful curse that vengeful scorned lovers sometime place on their former partners. It adds a bit of dramatic imagery to the story.

The Woman’s Bōrei from Mihogasaki, Suruga Province

This is a story from Suruga Province. A love story, between a man from Kiyomidera, and a woman from Mihogasaki.

Every night the woman would visit the man, swimming the six kilometers across Suruga Bay from Mihogasaki to Kiyomidera, wearing candles on her head to light her path. The man would light a fire at Kiyomidera every night to show her the way.

However, as the months as years passed, the man began to wonder why the woman would swim across the bay just to visit him every night. These thoughts scared him, and he became convinced that she was not human. Feeling afraid, one night he decided to douse his signal fire.

The woman swam out into the bay and looked for the fire, but she could not find it. She swam from place to place searching for it, but finally she grew week and drowned in the sea. Her bōrei could not find peace. Eventually it located the man, then possessed and killed him.

It is said that the woman’s bōrei still haunts the area. Whenever a fire broke out at Kiyomidera, a fire also broke out at Mihogasaki without fail. And when a fire burned in Mihogasaki, Kiyomidera would catch fire as well.

Since then and to this very day, whenever there is a fire at Mihogasaki, the people light a bonfire at Kiyomidera, and if there is a fire at Kiyomidera, the people of Mihogasaki burn fires too. Both sides copy each other’s fires.

I was told this story by a boatsman when I visited the shrine at Mihogasaki several years ago.

Today’s story deals wit another henge—a generic term for a yōkai animal that shapeshifts to trick people. Henge are often kitsune or tanuki, but they can also be mujina, itachi, or just about any other animal. This story reveals two clues about henge and how to identify them: one is that they have round hands. This is of course an allusion to the shape of the animal’s paws. The other is that after dying, a henge will return to its animal form. If you kill a person who was actually a shapeshifting animal, they will turn back into that animal when they die.

Sugiyama Hyōbu of Dewa Province’s Double Wife Disaster

There was a samurai from Dewa Province named Sugiyama Hyōbu. One night his wife went out the back door to use the outhouse, returned a little while later, and went to bed. A short while later there was a knock on the door.

“Who’s there?” asked Hyōbu.

His wife’s voice answered. Hyōbu was perplexed. He opened the door to let her in. Then he lit a lantern and inspected the two women closely. They were identical to each other in every way. He was even more perplexed.

When morning came, Hyōbu put both of his wives to work in different areas of the house. No matter how he tested them, there was no difference between them at all. He continued to scrutinize them, to no avail, when finally, someone told him:

“A henge will always have round hands, like paws.”

So Hyōbu inspected both of his wives’ hands. As it turned out, one of the wives’ hands were slightly round! Surely she was the henge. So Hyōbu immediately cut her head off.

Unfortunately, that one turned out to be his actual wife.

Therefore, the other wife must surely be the henge! Hyōbe went to cut off her head too. She tried everything to stop him, begging, lamenting, and cursing him, but he did not listen. He cut off her head.

But upon close inspection, this one turned out to be his actual wife.

Hyōbe was completely perplexed. He left the wives’ corpses out for a few days, but neither one changed at all.

Such strange things do happen, don’t they?

There are many nuanced ways to describe ghosts in Japanese. The most common words are obake (which means “changed thing”), yūrei (“faint spirit”), and onryō (“grudge spirit”). Tonight’s story uses the word bōrei, which appears several times in Shokoku hyakumonogatari. The word literally means “dead spirit,” and simply refers to the spirit of a person who has died. It might even be preferable to simply translate bōrei into English and say “ghost” instead, but whenever possible I like to preserve the Japanese names of supernatural creatures; so I left it as-is.

Tonight’s story mentioned Ariwara no Narihira; a name which is probably unfamiliar to most English-speaking readers, but which would have been instantly recognizable to an Edo period reader. He was a legendary poet and playboy from the Heian era. His name is synonymous with the idea of a beautiful, seductive, young man, much in the same way Don Juan and Casanova are used in English. His name has appeared in yōkai stories before.

The Monk Who Met a Bōrei in Shimotsuke

Long ago, a celibate monk was traveling to Shimotsuke Province for ascetic training. The sun was setting, and there was no inn to be seen anywhere for some distance, so he decided to spend the night in a field. He was reciting sutras and prayers, when he heard the faint sound of a flute coming from out nowhere.

The monk thought it was strange to hear a flute out here, so far from any village, and so he grew a little afraid. He chanted his prayers even louder, but as he did the sound of the flute drew closer and closer. Then he saw a boy of about sixteen, with such sublime features that the monk wondered if the legendary Ariwara no Narihira of antiquity looked something like this.

The monk was increasingly perplexed as to how a person like this could appear in the middle of a field in the middle of the night, and he figured it must be a henge of some kind. He was chanting the Shingon darani prayer, when the boy said to him:

“Father, why are you all alone in such a place as this?”

The monk replied, “Night fell as I was traveling, and I was about to spend the night here. What kind of a man are you to come to such a place?”

The boy looked over the monk, and said to him, “I can see that you must think I am a henge. I assure you am absolutely no such thing. I have merely come here to play my flute, and to comfort my heart on this clear moonlit night. Please fear me not. Let me accompany you back to my mansion and give you a place to stay.”

The monk was concerned, but he thought that if this was a henge, it wouldn’t leave him in peace if he stayed here in the field. So he got up and accompanied the boy some distance, until they arrived at a large castle.

They passed through two, then three gates. They crossed a moat and passed deeper and deeper into the back of the castle, until they reached a beautifully appointed room.

“Come inside,” the boy said.

He served the monk food, followed by tea and refreshments.

Then the boy went into the next room and politely said, “You can rest peacefully here. I always sleep in this room. You must be exhausted from your journey.”

The monk grew more and more suspicious. Unable to sleep, he stayed up for the rest of the night until dawn broke. In the morning, a crowd of castle guards burst into his room.

“Who is this strange monk, and how did he sneak into our castle? Arrest him and torture him!”

The monk was startled. “Please wait a moment! I can explain,” he said. Then he told them everything that had happened the previous night.

As the men listened to the monk, they became astonished. Some of them burst into tears. When the monk asked them why, they replied:

“Here is why! The young lord of this castle died of an illness only twenty days ago. He was only fifteen years old. He always loved playing his flute, so we made an offering of a bamboo flute and placed it upon his altar where we prayed for his soul. Now it seems that the young lord’s bōrei honored you by inviting you into his room. Please, you must stay here for some time and perform memorial services for his lordship!”

The men explained everything to the lord of the castle, who agreed to retain the monk, and they treated him to a great feast.