Part 1 (1/2)

ANCIENT TALES AND FOLK-LORE OF j.a.pAN.

by Richard Gordon Smith.

Preface.

THE stories in this volume are transcribed from voluminous ill.u.s.trated diaries which have been kept by me for some twenty years spent in travel and in sport in many lands--the last nine of them almost entirely in j.a.pan, while collecting subjects of natural history for the British Museum; trawling and dredging in the Inland Sea, sometimes with success, sometimes without, but in the end contributing to the treasury some fifty things new to Science, and, according to Sir Edwin Ray Lankester, 'adding greatly to the knowledge of j.a.panese Ethnology.' As may be supposed, such a life has brought me into close contact with the people--the fisher, the farmer, the priest, the doctor, the children, and all others from whom there is a possibility of extracting information. Many and weird are the tales I have been told. In this volume the Publishers prefer to have a mixture--stories of Mountains, of Trees, of Flowers, of Places in History, and Legends. For the general results obtained in my diaries I have to thank our late Minister in Tokio, Sir Ernest Satow; the Ministers and Vice-Ministers of Foreign Affairs and of Agriculture, who gave me many letters of introduction; my dear friend Mr. Hattori, Governor of Hiogo Prefecture; the translators of the original notes and ma.n.u.scripts (often roughly written in j.a.panese), among whom are Mr. Ando, Mr. Matsuzaki, and Mr. Watanabe; and Mr. Mo-No-Yuki, who drew and painted the ill.u.s.trations from sketches of my own, which must often have grated on his artistic ideas, keeping him awake in reflection on the crudeness of the European sense of art.

To my faithful interpreter Yuki Egawa also are due my thanks for continual efforts to find what I wanted; and to many j.a.panese peasants and fishermen, whose good-nature, kindness, and hospitality have endeared them to me for ever. Well is it that they, so worthy a people, have so worthy a Sovereign.

R. GORDON SMITH.

June 1908.

A.

2. The Spirit of O Ko appears to Konojo as O Kei San.

ANCIENT TALES AND FOLKLORE OF j.a.pAN I.

THE GOLDEN HAIRPINA 1.

UP in the northern city of Sendai, whence come the best of j.a.panese soldiers, there lived a samurai named Hasunuma.

Hasunuma was rich and hospitable, and consequently much thought of and well liked. Some thirty-five years ago his wife presented him with a beautiful daughter, their first child, whom they called 'Ko,' which means 'Small' when applied to a child, much as we say 'Little Mary or Little Jane.' Her full name was really 'Hasu-ko,' which means 'Little Lily'; but here we will call her 'Ko' for short.

Exactly on the same date, 'Saito,' one of Hasunuma's friends and also a samurai, had the good fortune to have a son. The fathers decided that, being such old friends, they would wed their children to each other when old enough to marry; they were very happy over the idea, and so were their wives. To make the engagement of the babies more binding, Saito handed to Hasunuma a golden hairpin which had long been in his family, and said: 'Here, my old friend, take this pin. It shall be a token of betrothal from my son, whose name shall be KAnojA, to your little daughter Ko, both of whom are now aged two weeks only. May they live long and happy lives together.'

Hasunuma took the pin, and handed it to his wife to keep; then they drank sakA to the health of each other, and to the bride and bridegroom of some twenty years thence.

A few months after this Saito, in some way, caused displeasure to his feudal lord, and, being dismissed from service, left Sendai with his family--whither no one knew.

Seventeen years later O Ko San was, with one exception, the most beautiful girl in all Sendai; the exception was her sister, O Kei, just a year younger, and as beautiful as herself.

Many were the suitors for O Ko's hand; but she would have none of them, being faithful to the engagement made for her by her father when she was a baby. True, she had never seen her betrothed, and (which seemed more curious) neither she nor her family had ever once heard of the Saito family since they had left Sendai, over sixteen years before; but that was no reason why she, a j.a.panese girl, should break the word of her father, and therefore O Ko San remained faithful to her unknown lover, though she sorrowed greatly at his non-appearance; in fact, she secretly suffered so much thereby that she sickened, and three months later died, to the grief of all who knew her and to her family's serious distress.

On the day of O Ko San's funeral her mother was seeing to the last attentions paid to corpses, and smoothing her hair with the golden pin given to Ko San or O KoA 1 by Saito in behalf of his son KAnojA. When the body had been placed in its coffin, the mother thrust the pin into the girl's hair, saying: 'Dearest daughter, this is the pin given as a memento to you by your betrothed, KAnojA. Let it be a pledge to bind your spirits in death, as it would have been in life; and may you enjoy endless happiness, I pray.'

In thus praying, no doubt, O Ko's mother thought that KAnojA also must be dead, and that their spirits would meet; but it was not so, for two months after these events KAnojA himself, now eighteen years of age, turned up at Sendai, calling first on his father's old friend Hasunuma.

'Oh, the bitterness and misfortune of it all!' said the latter. 'Only two months ago my daughter Ko died. Had you but come before then she would have been alive now. But you never even sent a message; we never heard a word of your father or of your mother. Where did you all go when you left here? Tell me the whole story.'

'Sir,' answered the grief-stricken KAnojA, 'what you tell me of the death of your daughter, whom I had hoped to marry, sickens my heart, for I, like herself, had been faithful, and I hoped to marry her, and thought daily of her. When my father took my family away from Sendai, he took us to Yedo; and afterwards we went north to [paragraph continues] Yezo Island, where my father lost his money and became poor. He died in poverty. My poor mother did not long survive him. I have been working hard to try and earn enough to marry your daughter Ko; but I have not made more than enough to pay my journey down to Sendai. I felt it my duty to come and tell you of my family's misfortune and my own.'

The old samurai was much touched by this story. He saw that the most unfortunate of all had been KAnojA.

'KAnojA,' he said, 'often have I thought and wondered to myself, Were you honest or were you not? Now I find that you have been truly faithful, and honest to your father's pledge. But you should have written--you should have written! Because you did not do so, sometimes we thought, my wife and I, that you must be dead; but we kept this thought to ourselves, and never told Ko San. Go to our Butsudan;A 1 open the doors of it, and burn a joss stick to Ko San's mortuary tablet. It will please her spirit. She longed and longed for your return, and died of that sane longing--for love of you. Her spirit will rejoice to know that you have come back for her.'

KAnojA did as he was bid.

Bowing reverently three times before the mortuary tablet of O Ko San, he muttered a few words of prayer in her behalf, and then lit the incense-stick and placed it before the tablet.

After this exhibition of sincerity Hasunuma told the young fellow that he should consider him as an adopted son, and that he must live with them. He could have the small house in the garden. In any case, whatever his plans for the future might be, he must remain with them for the present.

This was a generous offer, worthy of a samurai. KAnojA gratefully accepted it, and became one of the family. About a fortnight afterwards he settled himself in the little house at the end of the garden. Hasunuma, his wife, and their second daughter, O Kei, had gone, by command of the Daimio, to the Higan, a religious ceremony held in March; Hasunuma also always wors.h.i.+pped at his ancestral tombs at this time. Towards the dusk of evening they were returning in their palanquins. KAnojA stood at the gate to see them pa.s.s, as was proper and respectful. The old samurai pa.s.sed first, and was followed by his wife's palanquin, and then by that of O Kei. As this last pa.s.sed the gate KAnojA thought he heard something fall, causing a metallic sound. After the palanquin had pa.s.sed he picked it up without any particular attention.

It was the golden hairpin; but of course, though KAnojA's father had told him of the pin, KAnojA had no idea that this was it, and therefore he thought nothing more than that it must be O Kei San's. He went back to his little house, closed it for the night, and was about to retire when he heard a knock at the door. 'Who is there?' he shouted. 'What do you want?' There came no answer, and KAnojA lay down on his bed, thinking himself to have been mistaken. But there came another knock, louder than the first; and KAnojA jumped out of bed, and lit the ando.A 1 'If not a fox or a badger,' thought he, 'it must be some evil spirit come to disturb me.'

On opening the door, with the ando in one hand, and a stick in the other, KAnojA looked out into the dark, and there, to his astonishment, he beheld a vision of female beauty the like of which he had never seen before. 'Who are you, and what do you want?' quoth he.

'I am O Kei San, O Ko's younger sister,' answered the vision. 'Though you have not seen me, I have several times seen you, and I have fallen so madly in love with you that I can think of nothing else but you. When you picked up my golden pin to-night on our return, I had dropped it to serve as an excuse to come to you and knock. You must love me in return; for otherwise I must die!'

This heated and outrageous declaration scandalised poor KAnojA. Moreover, he felt that it would be doing his kind host Hasunuma a great injustice to be receiving his younger daughter at this hour of the night and make love to her. He expressed himself forcibly in these terms.

'If you will not love me as I love you, then I shall take my revenge,' said O Kei, 'by telling my father that you got me to come here by making love to me, and that you then insulted me.'

Poor KAnojA! He was in a nice mess. What he feared most of all was that the girl would do as she said, that the samurai would believe her, and that he would be a disgraced and villainous person. He gave way, therefore, to the girl's request. Night after night she visited him, until nearly a month had pa.s.sed. During this time KAnojA had learned to love dearly the beautiful O Kei. Talking to her one evening, he said: 'My dearest O Kei, I do not like this secret love of ours. Is it not better that we go away? If I asked your father to give you to me in marriage he would refuse, because I was betrothed to your sister.'

'Yes,' answered O Kei: 'that is what, I also have been wis.h.i.+ng. Let us leave this very night, and go to Is.h.i.+nomaki, the place where (you have told me) lives a faithful servant of your late father's, called Kinzo.'

'Yes: Kinzo is his name, and Is.h.i.+nomaki is the place. Let us start as soon as possible.'

Having thrust a few clothes into a bag, they started secretly and late that night, and duly arrived at their destination. Kinzo was delighted to receive them, and pleased to show how hospitable he could be to his late master's son and the beautiful lady.

They lived very happily for a year. Then one day O Kei said: 'I think we ought to return, to my parents now. If they were angry with us at first they will have got over the worst of it. We have never written. They must be getting anxious as to my fate as they grow older. Yes: we ought to go.'

KAnojA agreed. Long had he felt the injustice he was doing Hasunuma.

Next day they found themselves back in Sendai, and KAnojA could not help feeling a little nervous as he approached the samurai's house. They stopped at the outer gate, and O Kei said to KAnojA, 'I think it will be better for you to go in and see my father and mother first. If they get very angry show them this golden pin.

KAnojA stepped boldly up to the door, and asked for an interview with the samurai.

Before the servant had time to return, KAnojA heard the old man shout, 'KAnojA San! Why, of course! Bring the boy in at once,' and he himself came out to welcome him.

'My dear boy,' said the samurai, 'right glad am I to see you back again. I am sorry you did not find your life with us good enough. You might have said you were going. But there--I suppose you take after your father in these matters, and prefer to disappear mysteriously. You are welcome back, at all events.'

KAnojA was astonished at this speech, and answered: 'But, sir, I have come to beg pardon for my sin.'

'What sin have you committed?' queried the samurai in great surprise, and drawing himself up, in a dignified manner.

KAnojA then gave a full account of his love-affair with O Kei. From beginning to end he told it all, and as he proceeded the samurai showed signs of impatience.

'Do not joke, sir! My daughter O Kei San is not a subject for jokes and untruths. She has been as one dead for over a year--so ill that we have with difficulty forced gruel into her mouth. Moreover, she has spoken no word and shown no sign of life.'

'I am neither stating what is untrue nor joking,' said KAnojA. 'If you but send outside, you will find O Kei in the palanquin, in which I left her.'