The Snow Ghost and Other Tales by Various

Author:Various [Various]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Horror, Ghost, Classics, Cultural Heritage, World Literature, Japan
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2023-08-17T07:00:00+00:00

The Legend of Yurei-Daki

Near the village of Kurosaka, in the Province of Hōki, there is a waterfall called Yurei-Daki or The Cascade of Ghosts. Why it is so called I do not know. Near the foot of the fall there is a small Shintō shrine of the god of the locality, whom the people name Taki-Daimyōjin; and in front of the shrine is a little wooden money-box (saisen-bako) to receive the offerings of believers. And there is a story about that money-box.

One icy winter’s evening, thirty-five years ago, the women and girls employed at a certain asa-toriba or hemp factory in Kurosaka, gathered around the big brazier in the spinning-room after their day’s work had been done. Then they amused themselves by telling ghost stories. By the time that a dozen stories had been told, most of the gathering felt uncomfortable; and a girl cried out, just to heighten the pleasure of fear, ‘Only think of going this night, all by one’s self, to the Yurei-Daki!’ The suggestion provoked a general scream, followed by nervous bursts of laughter …

‘I’ll give all the hemp I spun today,’ mockingly said one of the party, ‘to the person who goes!’

‘So will I,’ exclaimed another.

‘And I,’ said a third.

‘All of us,’ affirmed a fourth …

Then from among the spinners stood up one Yasumoto O-Katsu, the wife of a carpenter – she had her only son, a boy of two years old, snugly wrapped up and asleep upon her back.

‘Listen,’ said O-Katsu, ‘if you will all really agree to make over to me all the hemp spun today, I will go to the Yurei-Daki.’

Her proposal was received with cries of astonishment and of defiance. But after having been several times repeated, it was seriously taken. Each of the spinners in turn agreed to give up her share of the day’s work to O-Katsu, providing that O-Katsu should go to the Yurei-Daki.

‘But how are we to know if she really goes there?’ a sharp voice asked.

‘Why, let her bring back the money-box of the god,’ answered an old woman whom the spinners called Obaa San, the Grandmother, ‘that will be proof enough.’

‘I’ll bring it,’ cried O-Katsu.

And out she darted into the street, with her sleeping boy upon her back.

*

The night was frosty, but clear. Down the empty street O-Katsu hurried; and she saw that all the house fronts were tightly closed, because of the piercing cold. Out of the village and along the high road she ran – pichà-pichà – with the great silence of frozen rice fields on either hand, and only the stars to light her. Half an hour she followed the open road; then she turned down a narrower way, winding under cliffs. Darker and rougher the path became as she proceeded; but she knew it well and she soon heard the dull roar of the water. A few minutes more and the way widened into a glen – and the dull roar suddenly became a loud clamour – and before her she saw, looming against a mass of blackness, the long glimmering of the fall.

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