Part 2 (2/2)

The bones were properly buried and ma.s.ses said, and nothing has since been seen of the ghost.

All that remains of the temple are the moss-grown pedestals which formed the foundations.

Footnotes.

36:1 In many stories in MS. volumes I have told of s.h.i.+to dama or astral spirits. So much evidence have I got from personal acquaintances as to their existence, and even frequent occurrence, that I almost believe in them myself. Some say that there are two shapes--the roundish oblong tadpole shape, and the more square-fronted eyed shape. Priests declare the shapes and s.e.xes to be all alike, indistinguishable from each other and square-fronted, as in No. 2. My hunter, Oto of Itami, who, with his son, saw the old barber's wife's s.h.i.+to dama after she had died, declared that the shape was like an egg with a tail. At Tsuboune, near Naba, two or three dozen people who had seen the s.h.i.+to dama of a deaf man and that of a fisher-girl there declared both to be square-fronted. Again: At Tos.h.i.+ s.h.i.+ma the old men declare that there was a carpenter whose s.h.i.+to dama appeared five or six times some fifteen years ago, and that it was red, instead of having the ordinary phosph.o.r.escent smoky-white appearance. s.h.i.+to dama, I take it, is the astral form that a spirit can a.s.sume if it wishes to wander the earth after death. This is the story of a dissatisfied spirit which haunted a temple and also showed itself as a ghost.

7. Rosetsu Watches the Carp.

VI A CARP GIVES A LESSON IN PERSEVERANCEA 1.

BETWEEN the years 1750 and 1760 there lived in Kyoto a great painter named Okyo-Maruyama Okyo. His paintings were such as to fetch high prices even in those days. Okyo had not only many admirers in consequence, but had also many pupils who strove to copy his style; among them was one named Rosetsu, who eventually became the best of all.

When first Rosetsu went to Okyo's to study he was, without exception, the dullest and most stupid pupil that Okyo had ever had to deal with. His learning was so slow that pupils who had entered as students under Okyo a year and more after Rosetsu overtook him. He was one of those plodding but unfortunate youths who work hard, harder perhaps than most, and seem to go backwards as if the very G.o.ds were against them.

I have the deepest sympathy with Rosetsu. I myself became a bigger fool day by day as I worked; the harder I worked or tried to remember the more manifestly a fool I became.

Rosetsu, however, was in the end successful, having been greatly encouraged by his observations of the perseverance of a carp.

Many of the pupils who had entered Okyo's school after Rosetsu had left, having become quite good painters. Poor Rosetsu was the only one who had made no progress whatever for three years. So disconsolate was he, and so little encouragement did his master offer, that at last, crestfallen and sad, he gave up the hopes he had had of becoming a great painter, and quietly left the school one evening, intending either to go home or to kill himself on the way. All that night he walked, and half-way into the next, when, tired out from want of sleep and of food, he flung himself down on the snow under the pine trees.

Some hours before dawn Rosetsu awoke, hearing a strange noise not thirty paces from him. He could not make it out, but sat up, listening, and glancing towards the place whence the sound--of splas.h.i.+ng water--came.

As the day broke he saw that the noise was caused by a large carp, which was persistently jumping out of the water, evidently trying to reach a piece of sembei (a kind of biscuit made of rice and salt) lying on the ice of a pond near which Rosetsu found himself. For full three hours the fish must have been jumping thus unsuccessfully, cutting and bruising himself against the edges of the ice until the blood flowed and many scales had been lost.

Rosetsu watched its persistency with admiration. The fish tried every imaginable device. Sometimes it would make a determined attack on the ice where the biscuit lay from underneath, by charging directly upwards; at other times it would jump high in the air, and hope that by falling on the ice bit by bit would be broken away, until it should be able to reach the sembei; and indeed the carp did thus break the ice, until at last he reached the prize, bleeding and hurt, but still rewarded for brave perseverance.

Rosetsu, much impressed, watched the fish swim off with the food, and reflected.

'Yes,' he said to himself: 'this has been a moral lesson to me. I will be like this carp. I will not go home until I have gained my object. As long as there is breath in my body I will work to carry out my intention. I will labour harder than ever, and, no matter if I do not progress, I will continue in my efforts until I attain my end or die.'

After this resolve Rosetsu visited the neighbouring temple, and prayed for success; also he thanked the local deity that he had been enabled to see, through the carp's perseverance, the line that a man should take in life.

Rosetsu then returned to Kyoto, and to his master, Okyo, told the story of the carp and of his determination.

Okyo was much pleased, and did his best for his backward pupil. This time Rosetsu progressed. He became a well-known painter, the best man Okyo ever taught, as good, in fact, as his master; and he ended by being one of j.a.pan's greatest painters.

Rosetsu took for crest the leaping carp.

Footnotes.

44:1 One day my old painter Busetsu was talking with me about j.a.pan's greatest painters, and of one of them he told a strange story. It was interesting in one thing especially, and that was that the name of Rosetsu I could not find mentioned in Louis Gonse's book, though, of course, Maruyama Okyo was. Five names were given as those of the best pupils of Okyo; but Rosetsu was not mentioned. I wrote to my friend the Local Governor, who is an authority on j.a.panese paintings. His answer was, 'You are quite right: Rosetsu was one of Okyo's best pupils, perhaps the best.'

VII LEGENDS TOLD BY A FISHERMAN ON LAKE BIWA, AT ZEZE.

WHILE up fis.h.i.+ng on Lake Biwa, and later shooting in the vicinity (shooting is not allowed on the lake itself, the water being considered a holy place), I often made Zeze my head-quarters. At the edge of the lake, just there, stands the cottage of an oldA old fisherman and his sons. They have made a little harbour for their boats; but they cultivate no ground, their cottage standing in wild gra.s.s near a solitary willow. The reason of this is that they are rich, or comparatively so, being the owners of an immense fish-trap, which runs out into the lake nearly a mile, and is a disgrace to all civilised ideas of conservation. They bought the rights from the Daimio, who owned Zeze Castle a hundred years or more ago (this is my own guess at the date, for I never asked or noted it). The trap catches enough to keep the whole of four families comfortable.

Two or three interesting little legends (truths the old senior fisherman called them) I got, either from himself or from his son while visiting his trap, or sitting under his willow, fis.h.i.+ng myself--for stories.

'Surely the Danna San could not be interested in the simple old stories of bygone days? Even my sons do not care for them nowadays!'

'I care for anything of interest,' I said. 'And you will greatly please me by telling me any fishermen's legends of hereabouts, or even of the north-western end of the lake if you know any.'

'Well, there is our Fire Ball,' said the old fisherman. That is a curious and unpleasant thing. I have seen it many times myself. I will begin with that.'

8. The Fire-Ball or 's.h.i.+to Dama' of Akechi.

LEGEND.

'Many years ago there was a Daimio who had constructed at the foot of the southern spur of Mount Hiyei a castle, the ruins of which may still be seen just to the north of the military barracks of the Ninth Regiment in Otsu. The name of the Daimio was Akechi Mitsuhide, and it is his s.h.i.+to dama that we see now in wet weather on the lake. It is called the spirit of Akechi.

'The reason of it is this. When Akechi Mitsuhide defended himself against the Toyotomi, he was closely invested; but his castle held out bravely, and could not be taken in spite of Toyotomi's greater forces. As time went on, the besiegers became exasperated, and prevailed upon a bad fisherman from Magisa village to tell where was the source of water which supplied Akechi's castle. The water having been cut off, the garrison had to capitulate, but not before Akechi and most of his men had committed suicide.

'From that time, in rain or in rough weather, there has come from the castle a fire-ball, six inches in diameter or more. It comes to wreak vengeance on fishermen, and causes many wrecks, leading boats out of their course. Sometimes it comes almost into the boat. Once a fisherman struck it with a bamboo pole, breaking it up into many fiery bits; and on that occasion many boats were lost.

'In full it is called ”The Spider Fire of the Spirit of the Dead Akechi.” That is all, sir, that I can tell of it--except that often have I seen it myself, and feared it.'

'That is very interesting,' said I, 'and quite what I like. Can you tell me any more?'

'Perhaps, if Danna San found interest in that simple story, he would like to know the reason of why we always have such a terrible storm over the lake on February 25: so I will tell of that also.'

9. O Tani San's Tub Gets Swamped.

LEGEND.

'Long ago there lived in the village of Komatsu, on the south-eastern side of the lake, a beautiful girl called O Tani. She was the daughter of a wealthy farmer, and of a studious nature as far as it was possible for a girl to be so in those days; that is to say, she was for ever wis.h.i.+ng to learn and to know things which were not always within the province of women to know. With the intention of inquiring and learning, she frequently crossed the lake in a boat alone, to visit a certain talented and clever young monk, who was the chief priest at one of the smaller temples situated at the foot of Mount Hiyei San, just over there where you are looking now.

'So deeply impressed was O Tani San with the priest's knowledge, she lost her heart and fell in love with him. Her visits became more frequent. Often she crossed the lake alone, in spite of her parents' protests, when the waves were too high for the safety even of a hardy fisherman like myself.

'At last O Tani could resist no longer. She felt that she must tell the good priest of her love for him, and see if she could not persuade him to renounce the Church and run away with her.

'The monk was greatly sorrowed, and did not quite know what to say, or how to put the girl off. At last he thought that he would give her an impossible task. Knowing that the weather on Lake Biwa towards the end of February is nearly impossible as far as the navigation of small boats is concerned, he said, probably not for a moment meaning it seriously: '”O Tani San, if you successfully crossed the lake on the evening of February 25 in a was.h.i.+ng-tub, it might be possible that I should cast off my robes and forget my calling to carry out your wishes.”

'O Tani did not think of the impossible, nor did she quite understand the depth of the priest's meaning; young and foolish as she was with her blind love, she sculled herself home, thinking that the next time she crossed the lake it would be in the was.h.i.+ng-tub and to carry off the young priest as her husband. She was supremely happy.

'At last the 25th of February arrived. O Tani had taken care that the best and largest was.h.i.+ng-tub had been left near the borders of the lake. After dark she embarked in her frail craft, and without the least fear started.

'When she was about half-way across a fearful storm broke over Hiyei Mountain. The waves arose, and the wind blew with blinding force. Moreover, the light that was usually burning on the Hiyei San side of the lake, which the priest had promised should be especially bright this night, had been blown out. It was not long before poor O Tani's tub was capsized, and in spite of her efforts to keep afloat she sank beneath the waves to rise no more.

'It is said by some that the priest himself put out the light, so as to cut off the last possible chance of O Tani's reaching the sh.o.r.e, being over-zealous in his thoughts of good and evil.

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