Lafcadio Hearn, known to Nippon as Yakumo Koizumi, was born in Leucadia in the Ionian Islands, June 27, 1850. His father was an Irish surgeon in the British Army; his mother was a Greek. Both parents died while Hearn was still a child, and he was adopted by a great-aunt, and educated for the priesthood. To this training he owed his Latin scholarship and, doubtless, something of the subtlety of his intelligence. He soon found, however, that the prospect of an ecclesiastical career was alien from

Of old it was said: 'The River of Heaven is the Ghost of Waters.' We behold it shifting its bed in the course of the year as an earthly river sometimes does. Ancient Scholar Among the many charming festivals celebrated by Old Japan, the most romantic was the festival of Tanabata-Sama, the Weaving-Lady of the Milky Way. In the chief cities her holiday is now little observed; and in Tōkyō it is almost forgotten. But in many country districts, and even in villages, near the capital, it is still cel

The Will-o'-the-wisp is called kitsuné-bi ("fox-fire"), because the goblin-fox was formerly supposed to create it. In old Japanese pictures it is represented as a tongue of pale red flame, hovering in darkness, and shedding no radiance upon the surfaces over which it glides. To understand some of the following kyōka on the subject, the reader should know that certain superstitions about the magical power of the fox have given rise to several queer folk-sayings,—one of which relates to marrying a

The term Rikombyō is composed with the word rikon , signifying a "shade," "ghost," or "spectre," and the word byō , signifying "sickness," "disease." An almost literal rendering would be "ghost-sickness." In Japanese-English dictionaries you will find the meaning of Rikombyō given as "hypochondria;" and doctors really use the term in this modern sense. But the ancient meaning was a disorder of the mind which produced a Double ; and there is a whole strange literature about this weird disease. It

In the old Chinese and Japanese literature the toad is credited with supernatural capacities,—such as the power to call down clouds, the power to make rain, the power to exhale from its mouth a magical mist which creates the most beautiful illusions. Some toads are good spirits,—friends of holy men; and in Japanese art a famous Rishi called "Gama-Sennin" (Toad Rishi) is usually represented with a white toad resting upon his shoulder, or squatting beside him. Some toads are evil goblins, and crea

The term Shinkirō is used in the meaning of "mirage," and also as another name for Hōrai, the Elf-land of Far Eastern fable. Various beings in Japanese myth are credited with power to delude mortals by creating a mirage of Hōrai. In old pictures one may see a toad represented in the act of exhaling from its mouth a vapor that shapes the apparition of Hōrai. But the creature especially wont to produce this illusion is the Hamaguri ,—a Japanese mollusk much resembling a clam. Opening its shell, it

The etymological meaning of Rokuro-Kubi can scarcely be indicated by any English rendering. The term rokuro is indifferently used to designate many revolving objects—objects as dissimilar as a pulley, a capstan, a windlass, a turning lathe, and a potter's wheel. Such renderings of Rokuro-Kubi as "Whirling-Neck" and "Rotating-Neck" are unsatisfactory;—for the idea which the term suggests to Japanese fancy is that of a neck which revolves, and lengthens or retracts according to the direction of th

The Snow-Woman, or Snow-Spectre, assumes various forms; but in most of the old folk-tales she appears as a beautiful phantom, whose embrace is death. (A very curious story about her can be found in my "Kwaidan.") Yuki-Onna— Yosō kushi mo Atsu kōri; Sasu-kōgai ya Kōri naruran. [ As for the Snow-Woman,—even her best comb, if I mistake not, is made of thick ice; and her hair-pin 36 , too, is probably made of ice. ] Honrai wa Kū naru mono ka, Yuki-Onna? Yoku-yoku mireba Ichi-butsu mo nashi! [ Was sh

The spirits of the drowned are said to follow after ships, calling for a bucket or a water-dipper ( hishaku ). To refuse the bucket or the dipper is dangerous; but the bottom of the utensil should be knocked out before the request is complied with, and the spectres must not be allowed to see this operation performed. If an undamaged bucket or dipper be thrown to the ghosts, it will be used to fill and to sink the ship. These phantoms are commonly called Funa-Yūréï ("Ship-Ghosts"). The spirits of

Readers can find in my "Kottō" a paper about the Héïké-Crabs, which have on their upper shells various wrinklings that resemble the outlines of an angry face. At Shimono-séki dried specimens of these curious creatures are offered for sale.... The Héïké-Crabs are said to be the transformed angry spirits of the Héïké warriors who perished at Dan-no-ura. Shiwo-hi ni wa Séïzoroë shité, Héïkégani Ukiyo no sama we Yoko ni niramitsu. [ Marshaled (on the beach) at the ebb of the tide, the Héïké-crabs ob

Modern dictionaries ignore the uncanny significations of the word Yanari ,—only telling us that it means the sound of the shaking of a house during an earthquake. But the word used to mean the noise of the shaking of a house moved by a goblin; and the invisible shaker was also called Yanari . When, without apparent cause, some house would shudder and creak and groan in the night, folk used to suppose that it was being shaken from without by supernatural malevolence. Tokonoma ni Ikéshi tachiki mo

The term Sakasa-bashira (in these kyōka often shortened into saka-bashira ) literally means "upside-down post." A wooden post or pillar, especially a house-post, should be set up according to the original position of the tree from which it was hewn,—that is to say, with the part nearest to the roots downward. To erect a house-post in the contrary way is thought to be unlucky;—formerly such a blunder was believed to involve unpleasant consequences of a ghostly kind, because an "upside-down" pilla

The figure of the Bodhi-sattva Jizö, the savior of children's ghosts, is one of the most beautiful and humane in Japanese Buddhism. Statues of this divinity may be seen in almost every village and by every roadside. But some statues of Jizö are said to do uncanny things—such as to walk about at night in various disguises. A statue of this kind is called a Baké-Jizō 56 ,—meaning a Jizō; that undergoes transformation. A conventional picture shows a little boy about to place the customary child's-o

Place a large cuttlefish on a table, body upwards and tentacles downwards—and you will have before you the grotesque reality that first suggested the fancy of the Umi-Bōzu , or Priest of the Sea. For the great bald body in this position, with the staring eyes below, bears a distorted resemblance to the shaven head of a priest; while the crawling tentacles underneath (which are in some species united by a dark web) suggests the wavering motion of the priest's upper robe.... The Umi-Bōzu figures a

Homes are protected from evil spirits by holy texts and charms. In any Japanese village, or any city by-street, you can see these texts when the sliding-doors are closed at night: they are not visible by day, when the sliding-doors have been pushed back into the tobukuro . Such texts are called o-fuda (august scripts): they are written in Chinese characters upon strips of white paper, which are attached to the door with rice-paste; and there are many kinds of them. Some are texts selected from s

The old Japanese, like the old Greeks, had their flower-spirits and their hamadryads, concerning whom some charming stories are told. They also believed in trees inhabited by malevolent beings,—goblin trees. Among other weird trees, the beautiful tsubaki ( Camellia Japonica ) was said to be an unlucky tree;—this was said, at least, of the red-flowering variety, the white-flowering kind having a better reputation and being prized as a rarity. The large fleshy crimson flowers have this curious hab

A memory of long ago.... I am walking upon a granite pavement that rings like iron, between buildings of granite bathed in the light of a cloudless noon. Shadows are short and sharp: there is no stir in the hot bright air; and the sound of my footsteps, strangely loud, is the only sound in the street.... Suddenly an odd feeling comes to me, with a sort of tingling shock,—a feeling, or suspicion, of universal illusion. The pavement, the bulks of hewn stone, the iron rails, and all things visible,

In the period of the Ashikaga Shōgunate the shrine of Ogawachi-Myōjin, at Minami-Isé, fell into decay; and the daimyō of the district, the Lord Kitahataké, found himself unable, by reason of war and other circumstances, to provide for the reparation of the building. Then the Shintō priest in charge, Matsumura Hyōgo, sought help at Kyōto from the great daimyō Hosokawa, who was known to have influence with the Shōgun. The Lord Hosokawa received the priest kindly, and promised to speak to the Shōgu

In the town of Uji, in the province of Yamashiro, there lived, about six hundred years ago, a young samurai named Itō Tatéwaki Norisuké, whose ancestors were of the Héïké clan. Itō was of handsome person and amiable character, a good scholar and apt at arms. But his family were poor; and he had no patron among the military nobility,—so that his prospects were small. He lived in a very quiet way, devoting himself to the study of literature, and having (says the Japanese story-teller) "only the Mo

It was a perfect West Indian day. My friend the notary and I were crossing the island by a wonderful road which wound up through tropic forest to the clouds, and thence looped down again, through gold-green slopes of cane, and scenery amazing of violet and blue and ghost-gray peaks, to the roaring coast of the trade winds. All the morning we had been ascending,—walking after our carriage, most of the time, for the sake of the brave little mule;—and the sea had been climbing behind us till it loo

Tokyo, August 1, 1904. Here, in this quiet suburb, where the green peace is broken only by the voices of children at play and the shrilling of cicadæ, it is difficult to imagine that, a few hundred miles away, there is being carried on one of the most tremendous wars of modern times, between armies aggregating more than half a million of men, or that, on the intervening sea, a hundred ships of war have been battling. This contest, between the mightiest of Western powers and a people that began t