Ancient Tales and Folk-Lore of Japan by Richard Gordon Smith (ebook reader android TXT) 📖

54. Jirohei Clings to the Cherry Tree Even in Death

XLVIII THE ‘JIROHEI’ CHERRY TREE, KYOTO

THE Japanese say that ghosts in inanimate nature generally have more liveliness than ghosts of the dead. There is an old proverb which says something to the effect that ‘the ghosts of trees love not the willow’; by which, I suppose, is meant that they do not assimilate. In Japanese pictures of ghosts there is nearly always a willow tree. Whether Hokusai, the ancient painter, or Okyo Maruyama, a famous painter of Kyoto of more recent date, was responsible for the pictures with ghosts and willow trees, I do not know; but certainly Maruyama painted many ghosts under willow trees—the first from his wife, who lay sick.

Exactly what this has to do with the following story I cannot see; but my story-teller began with it.

In the northern part of Kyoto is a Shinto temple called Hirano. It is celebrated for the fine cherry trees that grow there. Among them is an old dead tree which is called ‘Jirohei,’ and is much cared for; but the story attached to it is little known, and has not been told, I believe, to a European before.

During the cherry blossom season many people go to view the trees, especially at night.

Close to the Jirohei cherry tree, many years ago, was a large and prosperous teahouse, once owned by Jirohei, who had started in quite a small way. So rapidly did he make money, he attributed his success to the virtue of the old cherry tree, which he accordingly venerated. Jirohei paid the greatest respect to the tree, attending to its wants. He prevented boys from climbing it and breaking its branches. The tree prospered, and so did he.

One morning a samurai (of the blood-and-thunder kind) walked up to the Hirano Temple, and sat down at Jirohei’s teahouse, to take a long look at the cherry blossom. He was a powerful, dark-skinned, evil-faced man about five feet eight in height.

‘Are you the landlord of this teahouse?’ asked he.

‘Yes, sir,’ Jirohei answered meekly: ‘I am. What can I bring you, sir?’

‘Nothing: I thank you,’ said the samurai. ‘What a fine tree you have here opposite your teahouse!’

‘Yes, sir: it is to the fineness of the tree that I owe my prosperity. Thank you, sir, for expressing your appreciation of it.’

‘I want a branch off the tree,’ quoth the samurai, ‘for a geisha.’

‘Deeply as I regret it, I am obliged to refuse your request. I must refuse everybody. The temple priests gave orders to this effect before they let me erect this place. No matter who it may be that asks, I must refuse. Flowers may not even be picked off the tree, though they may be gathered when they fall. Please, sir, remember that there is an old proverb which tells us to cut the plum tree for our vases, but not the cherry!’

‘You seem to be an unpleasantly argumentative person for your station in life,’ said the samurai. ‘When I say that I want a thing I mean to have it: so you had better go and cut it.’

‘However much you may be determined, I must refuse,’ said Jirohei, quietly and politely.

‘And, however much you may refuse, the more determined am I to have it. I as a samurai said I should have it. Do you think that you can turn me from my purpose? If you have not the politeness to get it, I will take it by force.’ Suiting his action to his words, the samurai drew a sword about three feet long, and was about to cut off the best branch of all. Jirohei clung to the sleeve of his sword arm, crying:

‘I have asked you to leave the tree alone; but you would not. Please take my life instead.’

‘You are an insolent and annoying fool: I gladly follow your request’; and saying this the samurai stabbed Jirohei slightly, to make him let go the sleeve. Jirohei did let go; but he ran to the tree, where in a further struggle over the branch, which was cut in spite of Jirohei’s defence, he was stabbed again, this time fatally. The samurai, seeing that the man must die, got away as quickly as possible, leaving the cut branch in full bloom on the ground.

Hearing the noise, the servants came out of the house, followed by Jirohei’s poor old wife.

It was seen that Jirohei himself was dead; but he clung to the tree as firmly as in life, and it was fully an hour before they were able to get him away.

From this time things went badly with the teahouse. Very few people came, and such as did come were poor and spent but little money. Besides, from the day of the murder of Jirohei the tree had begun to fade and die; in less than a year it was absolutely dead. The teahouse had to be closed for want of funds to keep it open. The old wife of Jirohei had hanged herself on the dead tree a few days after her husband had been killed.

People said that ghosts had been seen about the tree, and were afraid to go there at night. Even neighbouring teahouses suffered, and so did the temple, which for a time became unpopular.

The samurai who had been the cause of all this kept his secret, telling no one but his own father what he had done; and he expressed to his father his intention of going to the temple to verify the statements about the ghosts. Thus on the third day of March in the third year of Keio (that is, forty-two years ago) he started one night alone and well armed, in spite of his father’s attempts to stop him. He went straight to the old dead tree, and hid himself behind a stone lantern.

To his astonishment, at midnight the dead tree suddenly came out into full bloom, and looked just as it had been when he cut the branch and killed Jirohei.

On seeing this he fiercely attacked the tree with his keen-edged sword. He attacked it with mad fury, cutting and slashing; and he heard a fearful scream which seemed to him to come from inside the tree.

After half an hour he became exhausted, but resolved to wait until daybreak, to see what damage he had wrought. When day dawned, the samurai found his father lying on the ground, hacked to pieces, and of course dead. Doubtless the father had followed to try and see that no harm came to the son.

The samurai was stricken with grief and shame. Nothing was left but to go and pray to the gods for forgiveness, and to offer his life to them, which he did by disembowelling himself.

From that day the ghost appeared no more, and people came as before to view the cherry-bloom by night as well as by day; so they do even now. No one has ever been able to say whether the ghost which appeared was the ghost of Jirohei, or that of his wife, or that of the cherry tree which had died when its limb had been severed.

55. Kyuzaemon Sees the ‘Yuki Onna.’

XLIX THE SNOW GHOST

PERHAPS there are not many, even in Japan, who have heard of the ‘Yuki Onna’ (Snow Ghost). It is little spoken of except in the higher mountains, which are continually snowclad in the winter. Those who have read Lafcadio Hearn’s books will remember a story of the Yuki Onna, made much of on account of its beautiful telling, but in reality not better than the following.

Up in the northern province of Echigo, opposite Sado Island on the Japan Sea, snow falls heavily. Sometimes there is as much as twenty feet of it on the ground, and many are the people who have been buried in the snows and never found until the spring. Not many years ago three companies of soldiers, with the exception of three or four men, were destroyed in Aowomori; and it was many weeks before they were dug out, dead of course.

Mysterious disappearances naturally give rise to fancies in a fanciful people, and from time immemorial the Snow Ghost has been one with the people of the North; while those of the South say that those of the North take so much saké that they see snow-covered trees as women.

[paragraph continues] Be that as it may, I must explain what a farmer called Kyuzaemon saw.

In the village of Hoi, which consisted only of eleven houses, very poor ones at that, lived Kyuzaemon. He was poor, and doubly unfortunate in having lost both his son and his wife. He led a lonely life.

In the afternoon of the 19th of January of the third year of Tem-po—that is, 1833—a tremendous snowstorm came on. Kyuzaemon closed the shutters, and made himself as comfortable as he could. Towards eleven o’clock at night he was awakened by a rapping at his door; it was a peculiar rap, and came at regular intervals. Kyuzaemon sat up in bed, looked towards the door, and did not know what to think of this. The rapping came again, and with it the gentle voice of a girl. Thinking that it might be one of his neighbour’s children wanting help, Kyuzaemon jumped out of bed; but when he got to the door he feared to open it. Voice and rapping coming again just as he reached it, he sprang back with a cry: ‘Who are you? What do you want?’

‘Open the door! Open the door!’ came the voice from outside.

‘Open the door! Is that likely until I know who you are and what you are doing out so late and on such a night?’

‘But you must let me in. How can I proceed farther in this deep snow? I do not ask for food, but only for shelter.’

‘I am very sorry; but I have no quilts or bedding. I can’t possibly let you stay in my house.’

‘I don’t want quilts or bedding,—only shelter,’ pleaded the voice.

‘I can’t let you in, anyway,’ shouted Kyuzaemon. ‘It is too late and against the rules and the law.’

Saying which, Kyuzaemon rebarred his door with a strong piece of wood, never once having ventured to open a crack in the shutters to see who his visitor might be. As he turned towards his bed, with a shudder he beheld the figure of a woman standing beside it, clad in white, with her hair down her back. She had not the appearance of a ghost; her face was pretty, and she seemed to be about twenty-five years of age. Kyuzaemon, taken by surprise and very much alarmed, called out:

‘Who and what are you, and how did you get in? Where did you leave your geta.’ 1

‘I can come in anywhere when I choose,’ said the figure, ‘and I am the woman you would not let in. I require no clogs; for I whirl along over the snow, sometimes even flying through the air. I am on my way to visit the next village; but the wind is against me. That is why I wanted you to let me rest here. If you will do so I shall start as soon as the wind goes down; in any case I shall be gone by the morning.’

‘I should not so much mind letting you rest if you were an ordinary woman. I should, in fact, be glad; but I fear spirits greatly, as my forefathers have done,’ said Kyuzaemon.

‘Be not afraid. You have a butsudan?’ 2 said the figure.

‘Yes: I have a butsudan,’ said Kyuzaemon; ‘but what can you want to do with that?’

‘You say you are afraid of the spirits, of the effect that