TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

Accents and diacritical marks have generally been standardised. Where there is a single instance of a word with an accent, and one without, no change has been made to the original. (e.g. momme/mommé; murashite/murashité; Kuramae/Kuramaé).

The letter o with a macron is represented as ō.

The letter u with a macron is represented as ū.

If you cannot see the above letters with macrons, you may need to change the font in your browser.

The italicisation of Japanese words has been standardised.

Hyphenation and capitalisation has been standardised.

Punctuation and obvious printer's errors have been corrected. For a complete list, please see the bottom of this document.

LEGEND.

The outline of the map is that found in Volume I. of the Edo Sunago, published Keio 2nd year (1866). The detail of district maps found in the book is worked in, together with that from the sectional map of Edo published Ansei 4th year (1857), and from the Go Edo Zusetsu Shūran published Kaei 6th year (1853). The map therefore shows in rough outline the state of the city just before the removal of the capital from Kyōto; the distribution of the castes.

The Pre-Tokugawa villages (Eiroku: 1558-1569) indicated on the map found in the "Shūran" are:—

North and South Shinagawa: Meguro-Motomura: Gin-Mitamura: Mitamura: Ōnemura: Upper and Lower Shibuya: Harajuku-mura: Kokubunji: Azabu: Kawaza Ichi: Ōzawa-mura: Imai-mura: Sendagaya: Yamanaka-mura: Ichigaya: Ushigome: Kobiko-mura: Upper and Lower Hirakawa-mura: Ochiya: Sekihon: Ikebukuroya: Tomizaka-mura: Ishibukero-mura: Tanibaragaike: Neruma-mura: Okurikyōakarai-mura: Koishikawa: Zoshigayatsu: Ōji: Shimura: Takinogawa: Kinsoboku-mura: Harajuku-mura (II.): Komegome-mura: Taninaka-mura: Shimbori-mura: Mikawajima-mura: Ashigahara-mura: Haratsuka: Ishihama-mura: Senjū-mura: Suda-mura: Sumidagawa: Yanagijima: Jujō-mura; Itabashi: Sugamo-mura: Arakawa (river): Kandagawa pool (ike); Kanda-mura: Shibasaki-mura: Shin-Horima-mura: Yushima-mura: Shitaya-mura: Torigoe-mura: Shirosawa-mura: Asakusa-mura: Harai-mura: Some-Ushigome: Ishiwara: Kinoshitagawa: Ubagaike (pool): Negishi-mura: Kinsoki-mura: Kameido-mura (near Ueno): Shinobazu-ike (pool).

From South to North circling by the West.

Shinagawa: Mita-mura: Takanawa:
Near Imai-mura is a Myōjin shrine,
close by the mouth of the present Akabane river.

Ikura: Hibiya: Tsukiji: Tsukuda: Tame-ike (pool): Tsukuda Myōjin: Ota's castle: Sanke-in: Hirakawa-mura: Sakurada-mura: Honjū-mura: Ōtamage-ike: Kametaka-mura. To the East.

77 villages, total.

Pronounce as in Italian, giving vowels full value: ch- as in "church."

THE YOTSUYA KWAIDAN

OR

O'IWA INARI

BY THIS AUTHOR

SAKURAMBŌ
(THE FRUIT OF THE TREE)

Travel notes on thoughts and things Japanese, experienced
during a four years' sojourn in the country

Octavo. 339 pages.

MORE JAPONICO

A critique of the effect of an idea—communityism—on
the life and history of a people

Octavo. VI, 594 pages.

SAITŌ MUSASHI-BŌ BENKEI
(TALES OF THE WARS OF THE GEMPEI)

Being the story of the lives and adventures of
Iyo-no-Kami Minamoto Kurō Yoshitsune and Saitō
Musashi-Bō Benkei the Warrior Monk

Octavo. 2 Vols., XXI, 841 pages, with 69 full page
illustrations (frontispieces in color) and
three maps.

OGURI HANGWAN ICHIDAIKI
(TALES OF THE SAMURAI)

Being the story of the lives, the adventures, and the
mis-adventures of the Hangwan-dai Kojirō Sukéshigé
and Ternte-hime, his wife

Octavo. XV, 485 pages, with 45 full page illustrations
(frontispiece in color) and three maps.

The O'Iwa of the Tamiya Inari Jinja of Echizenbori, Tokyo The O'Iwa of the Tamiya Inari Jinja of Echizenbori, Tokyo

TALES OF THE TOKUGAWA

THE

YOTSUYA KWAIDAN

OR

O'IWA INARI

RETOLD FROM THE JAPANESE ORIGINALS

BY

JAMES S. DE BENNEVILLE

"The mainspring of human existence
is love (nasaké), for others or—oneself."

—Seishin

PRESS OF
J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
PHILADELPHIA, U.S.A.
1917

copyright, 1917, by
James Seguin de Benneville

PRINTED AND COPYRIGHTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

PREFACE

Tales of the Tokugawa can well be introduced by two "wonder-stories" of Nippon. One of these, the Yotsuya Kwaidan,[1] is presented in the present volume, not so much because of the incidents involved and the peculiar relation to a phase of Nipponese mentality, as from the fact that it contains all the machinery of the Nipponese ghost story. From this point of view the reading of one of these tales disposes of a whole class of the native literature. Difference of detail is found. But unless the tale carries some particular interest, as of curious illustration of customs or history—the excuse for a second presentation—a long course of such reading becomes more than monotonous. It is unprofitable. Curiously enough, it can be said that most Nipponese ghost stories are true. When a sword is found enshrined, itself the malevolent influence—as is the Muramasa blade of the Hamamatsu Suwa Jinja, the subject of the Komatsu Onryū of Matsubayashi Hakuchi—and with such tradition attached to it, it is difficult to deny a basis of fact attaching to the tradition. The ghost story becomes merely an elaboration of an event that powerfully impressed the men of the day and place. Moreover this naturalistic element can be detected in the stories themselves. Nipponese writers of to-day explain most of them by the word —"nerves"; the working of a guilty conscience moulding succeeding events, and interpreting the results to the subsequent disaster involved. The explanation is somewhat at variance with the native Shintō doctrine of the moral perfection of the Nipponese, and its maxim—follow the dictates of one's heart; but that is not our present concern.

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!