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    Kwaidan: Ghost Stories and Strange Tales of Old Japan
    Kwaidan: Ghost Stories and Strange Tales of Old Japan
    Kwaidan: Ghost Stories and Strange Tales of Old Japan
    Ebook179 pages2 hours

    Kwaidan: Ghost Stories and Strange Tales of Old Japan

    By Lafcadio Hearn, Yasumasa Fujita and Oscar Lewis

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    About this ebook

    A blind musician with amazing talent is called upon to perform for the dead. Faceless creatures haunt an unwary traveler. A beautiful woman — the personification of winter at its cruelest — ruthlessly kills unsuspecting mortals. These and seventeen other chilling supernatural tales — based on legends, myths, and beliefs of ancient Japan — represent the very best of Lafcadio Hearn's literary style. They are also a culmination of his lifelong interest in the endlessly fascinating customs and tales of the country where he spent the last fourteen years of his life, translating into English the atmospheric stories he so avidly collected.
    Teeming with undead samurais, man-eating goblins, and other terrifying demons, these twenty classic ghost stories inspired the Oscar®-nominated 1964 film of the same name.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDover Publications
    Release dateApr 3, 2012
    ISBN9780486120928
    Kwaidan: Ghost Stories and Strange Tales of Old Japan
    Author

    Lafcadio Hearn

    Lafcadio Hearn, also called Koizumi Yakumo, was best known for his books about Japan. He wrote several collections of Japanese legends and ghost stories, including Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things.

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    Reviews for Kwaidan

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    • 4/5
      An interesting little collection of short folk-tales and bits of legend, translated and explained by Hearn. There's a good mixture of stories and I enjoyed them. The closing section is rather random - a set of little musings on insects, including a distinctly weird piece which ends up speculating on how evolutionary and societal advances could allow humans to reach the ethical perfection of ants, and perhaps become near-immortal. Sounds like a quote from a transhumanist character in a bit of 1970s sci-fi.
    • 4/5
      I'm late to the Lafcadio Hearn party, having only read two stories in this collection before picking up this book -- "The Story of Mimi-Nashi-Hoichi" and "Yuki-Onna," which have long been personal favorites. There are seventeen actual "Kwaidan" ( kaidan) in this book, and then a section by Hearn called "Insect Studies," three compositions that in their own right are definitely worth reading. From what I've been able to discover, Hearn's wife Setsu related a number of these tales to him, but as Oscar Lewis notes in his introduction, Hearn spent a lot of energy and time trying to "unearth some quaint legend or trace down some curious bit of superstition...and he worked with the same slow patience to render his discoveries accurately and without distortion into English."He was so keen to get it right that"he made her [Setsu] enact again and again a part of some ancient legend, studying her every gesture, insisting on the exact intonation of every word."Now, I don't know about anyone else, but to me, that's a prime example of unshakable passion at its peak. Luckily, his admiration and persistence have paid off in spades -- these are some of the finest weird folk tales, legends, and ghostly tales to be collected in a single volume. Ranging from out-and-out creepy ghost stories to monks roaming the countryside where various monsters, demons and other creatures seem to abide, there is never a bad note struck throughout the entire collection.At seventeen stories, I'm not about to go into each one, but I'll highlight my favorites. As mentioned earlier, I am quite partial to "the Story of Mimi-nashi Hoichi," a tale in which a blind biwa player is summoned to recite the Tale of the Heike (平家物語Heike Monogatari -- another personal favorite) in front of a distinguished audience. He is asked to relate the part about the battle at Dannoura, "for the pity of it is most deep." Unfortunately for our blind biwa player, his recital is magnificent -- and he is called back for another performance. Then there's "Yuki-Onna," in which a young woodcutter is about to meet his death, but is miraculously saved by a strange woman he encounters in a cabin in the woods. What happens afterward is just downright freaky creepy. While all of the tales in this collection are excellent, I also loved "Rukoru-Kubi," the story of a high-ranking samurai turned wandering priest after his master's house was defeated in the ongoing warfare of the time and the house fell. Kwairyō (the priest) makes a habit of sleeping outdoors, but accepts a humble woodcutter's offer for shelter. Insomnia gets the best of him, and he literally stumbles into a closely-held secret that will literally stick with him for some time. Another fine entry is "The Dream of Akinosuke," in which the dreamer is whisked off to a sort of fairyland in order to marry the king's daughter -- but on waking from the dream, discovers exactly where he's been. Just super.The stories are short but their length doesn't affect their potency; by virtue of being stories that have been handed down over several centuries, the reader also gets a look at ancient Japan from different angles, from the world of the samurai on down to that of the peasant. It is a world of constant upheaval in terms of the physical world and also vis a vis the traditional social order. One major exception is "Hi-Mawari," a story that takes place in Wales, obviously penned by Hearn himself. After the kaidan section is finished, the reader moves into Hearn's "Insect Studies," where he dwells on butterflies, mosquitoes and ants. While you might be tempted to skip them, don't. They're absolutely fascinating, drawing on traditional folklore, etc. from Japan and China. I realize that not everyone is going to admire these stories like I do, but I love all things Japanese and this collection was simply superb. It might just be a good opening into all sorts of kaidan for a novice reader, and there are several works available in English that would make for great follow-up reading. Another thing worth noting here is that there is a movie called Kwaidan, based on Hearn's stories, two from this book and two more from other works he compiled. The two from this collection are "Yuki-Onna" and "The Story of Miminashi Hoichi;" these are joined by dramatizations of "The Reconciliation" (from Shadowings) and "In a Cup of Tea," (which is delightfully creepy) from his Kotto: Being Japanese Curios and Sundry Cobwebs. I loved this book and I can't recommend it highly enough.

    Book preview

    Kwaidan - Lafcadio Hearn

    ANTS

    Preface

    Most of the following Kwaidan, or Weird Tales, have been taken from old Japanese books—such as the Yas -Kidan, Bukky -Hayakkwa-Zensh , Kokon Chomonsh , Tama-Sudaré, and Hyaku-Monogatari ri, in Musashi province, as a legend of his native village. Whether it has ever been written in Japanese I do not know; but the extraordinary belief which it records used certainly do exist in most parts of Japan, and in many curious forms. . . . The incident of Riki-Baka was a personal experience; and I wrote it down almost exactly as it happened, changing only a family name mentioned by the Japanese narrator.

    L.H.

    , JAPAN, January 20, 1904.

    KWAIDAN

    The Story of Mimi-Nashi-H ïchi

    The Story of Mimi-Nashi-H ïchi

    . And that sea and shore have been haunted for seven hundred years. . . . Elsewhere I told you about the strange crabs found there, called Heiké crabs, which have human faces on their backs, and are said to be the spirits of Heiké warriors.¹ But there are many strange things to be seen and heard along that coast. On dark nights thousands of ghostly fires hover about the beach, or flit above the waves–pale lights which the fishermen call Oni-bi, or demon-fires; and, whenever the winds are up, a sound of great shouting comes from that sea, like a clamor of battle.

    In former years the Heiké were much more restless than they now are. They would rise about ships passing in the night, and try to sink them; and at all times they would watch for swimmers, to pull them down. It was in order to appease those dead that the Buddhist temple, Amidaji, was built at Akamagaséki. ² A cemetery also was made close by, near the beach; and within it were set up monuments inscribed with the names of the drowned emperor and of his great vassals; and Buddhist services were regularly performed there on behalf of the spirits of them. After the temple had been built, and the tombs erected, the Heiké gave less trouble than before; but they continued to do queer things at intervals–proving that they had not found the perfect peace.

    ïchi, who was famed for his skill in recitation and in playing upon the biwa.³ From childhood he had been trained to recite and to play; and while yet a lad he had surpassed his teachers. As a professional biwa-h shi he became famous chiefly by his recitations of the history of the Heiké and the Genji; and and it is said that when he sang the song of the battle of Dan-no-ura "even the goblins [kijin] could not refrain from tears".

    ïchi was given a room in the temple building; and, in return for food and lodging, he was required only to gratify the priest with a musical performance on certain evenings when otherwise disengaged.

    ïchi remained outside. At last he heard steps approaching from the back gate. Somebody crossed the garden, advanced to the veranda, and halted directly in front of him—but it was not the priest. A deep voice called the blind man’s name—abruptly and unceremoniously, in the manner of a samurai summoning an

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