Kwaidan : Stories and Studies of Strange Things by Lafcadio Hearn (ICG Muse)

Lafcadio Hearn was born in Greece on the Ionian island of Lefkada. His mother was a native of Greece and his father was a British Army medical officer. It was as an adult that Hearn moved to Japan to work as a newspaper correspondent. He fell in love with the country and managed to get a teaching position in Shimane Prefecture where he would meet and marry his wife, Setsuko Koizumi. He then became a Japanese citizen and took on the name Yakumo Koizumi. 

He is mostly known as the first foreigner to introduce Japanese literature to the rest of the world. His book Kwaidan is a collection of Japanese ghost stories, some of which have a Chinese origin. It was originally published in 1904 as 怪談 (Kaidan) in the Japanese language. 怪談meaning “Ghost Stories”. He appears to have made a play on words with the English title as kowai means “scary” and dan meaning “story”, “conversation”, or “talk”.

In the introduction of the book which Hearn wrote in 1904, he says most of the stories were taken from old Japanese books. He mentions that some of them have their origins in China but “the Japanese storyteller, in every case, has so recolored and re-shaped his borrowing as to naturalize it”. 

The lead story, Mimi Nashi Hoichi is a very popular story. Almost every Japanese person knows it. It is about a blind minstrel named Hoichi who could play the biwa, a Japanese lute, and was really good at telling The Tale of Heike. Especially his rendition of the Battle of Dan-no-Ura.

He made his home at a temple with a friendly pirest. His skill was so great that he was called to perform in front of a noble samurai when the main priest was absent. The nobleman was so pleased with his performance that he sent his servant to call upon Hoichi again.

The priest thought there was something strange about Hoichi’s behavior and had some of his servants follow him the next day. They discovered Hoichi playing his biwa in a cemetery in front of the tomb of Antoku Tenno, Japan’s 81st Emperor whose grandfather drowned him when he was only seven during the Battle of Dan-no-Ura. He did this so that the enemy wouldn’t capture the child emperor.

The priest told him he was bewitched by ghosts but he would protect him by writing sutras over Hoichi’s entire body. He was to remain silent and motionless when called upon again. The servant of the nobleman, who we now realize is also a spirit, called upon Hoichi but was angered because Hoichi did not answer him. The sutras the priest wrote rendered his body invisible. The only part of Hoichi’s body the servant could see were Hoichi’s ears. He ripped them off to show his master that the ears were the only part of Hoichi that he could find. 

When the priest returned to see a bloody and injured Hoichi, he admonished himself and apologized to Hoichi telling that he neglected to write any sutras over his ears. However, the priest nursed Hoichi back to health and Hoichi became a famous musician. 

Other stories include Yukki-Onna which is about a woman who is dressed in white and breathes cold air onto sleeping men and takes their lives. Riki Baka is about a simple boy whose mother wished and prayed that he would be reborn into a happier life. 

It’s a great introduction into Japanese folklore. Not all the stories are ghost stories but they are strange. Aside from the bizarre stories, Hearn has included three essays on insects - butterflies, mosquitoes, and ants, and how they relate to Japanese and Chinese beliefs.

The ghost stories are fun and might seem a little quirky to the Western reader and while I enjoyed the insect essays, I thought it was an interesting concept but a bit hard to absorb. ~Ernie Hoyt