day as the old woman was washing clothes in the river, the men who were chasing the brother and sister came to her and said: "If you tell us where the young people are, we will give you a reward." The greedy old woman was tempted to tell about them, but she remembered her promise to her son, so she did not tell them openly but turned her head in the direction of the mountain where the two young people were hiding. As soon as the pursuers saw that, they hastened to the mountain to search for the fugitives. Finally the pair was caught, and they were about to be killed under a big pine. Then the head man of the pursuing party took pity on the sister and brother and made a sign, shaking a baton in his hand. However, the men took it to be the sign to kill the two and they cut off their heads.
From that moment on, the old woman's head curved to one side and never regained its normal position. And her descendants all suffered from sore eyes. Moreover, an epidemic spread throughout this village. Therefore the villagers, fearing the curse of the two young people, enshrined the brother's spirit at Yamada and the sister's in the neighboring village of Kazamashi. This is said to be the origin of the Goryo Jinja [Shrine of the Vengeful Spirit].
THE SHRINE BUILT BY STRAW DOLLS
Hearn speaks of the belief in dolls coming alive and refers to a legend of a doll running out of a burning house (V, pp. 309-10). The present tale may belong to a cycle about the legendary carpenter Hida-no-takumi (the skilled worker of Hida). The pertinent motif is F675, "Ingenious carpenter."
Text from Katsuhiko Imamura, "Folktales from Bizen" (present Okayamaken), in Tabi to Densetsu, V (August, 1932), p. 579.
A LONG TIME AGO a feudal lord searched for a skillful carpenter in order to have a shrine built on the borders of Bizen and Bitchu provinces. But he could not find one. One day a carpenter came traveling from a distant province. The lord wondered why he came alone, because all the carpenters who had come before had had many apprentices. So he asked the carpenter: "Can you build a shrine all by yourself?" Then the carpenter answered: "Yes, I can. I will take it on my own responsibility if you give me the job." The lord granted his request, as he thought he was a rather unusual carpenter. All the people had a great interest in this carpenter. He told everybody not to come to the place where he was working until the building was completed.
The lord and all his servants were anxious to see the carpenter's work, but they let him work alone. The carpenter made rapid progress. In the daytime he worked alone, but by next morning he had done a great deal. The lord was curious about this and one night he secretly looked into the carpenter's working place. To his surprise he saw thirty or fifty carpenters identical with the original carpenter, all working busily. He tried to tell which was the true carpenter, but he couldn't. They were working hard in silence.
The days passed, and the shrine was about completed. The lord went there to give a reward to the carpenter, but he could not tell which one was the real carpenter. He asked the one beside him, who answered: "It is the one who has a mole near his eye." So the lord looked for the carpenter with a mole near his eye and gave him the reward. When the shrine was entirely constructed, that carpenter went away before anyone knew about it, and all the other carpenters fell down into the valley and died. People found many straw dolls down in the valley afterwards.
It is told that there was a small shrine where the straw dolls were found, and this shrine is the present Kibitsu Shrine.
VISIT TO ZENKO-JI DRIVEN BY A COW
This famous legend has become proverbial. Murai gives a Buddhist tradition on "The Origin of Zenko-ji Temple," pp. 57-61, and a variant of the present text on pp. 40-51, "An Old Woman at Nunobiki." His rendering of the verses traced from the cow's slobber is this:
Do not regard the fact,
As a mere ox's freak;
'Twas mercy of Buddha
To lead thee to righteousness!
The lines refer to a woman's cloth carried off on an ox's horn to a statue of Buddha. When in Nagano, I duly saw the grand Zenko-ji and was startled to come suddenly upon a frieze below a small altar showing the farmwife running frantically after the cow and her cloth, past astonished bystanders. The shrine on the mountainside at this old woman's village can be seen at the fourth station beyond the famed summer resort of Karuizawa. The story says that the old woman ran all the way from her village to Nagano, a distance ordinarily requiring ten hours to walk. A lovely illustrated four-page leaflet carrying a version of the legend has been issued by Zenkoji Temple, written by Priest Junsho Hayashi, and captioned "Pilgrimage to Zenko-ji Temple led by an Ox." Priest Hayashi interprets this title, which is used proverbially, in the sense of "entering the religious life led by grief," because ox is "ushi" in Japanese and "ushi" literally means grief.
Text from Masao Koyama, Chiisagata-gun Mintan Shu (Tokyo, 1933), p. 76.
Note: A temple often has two names, the first referring to the mountain on which it is built. Thus, for example, we have rendered Nunobiki-yama Shason-ji as "Shason-ji on Nunobiki-yama."
LONG AGO there was an old couple in Chiisagata-gun. They were badhearted and did not believe in any god or in Buddha. One day the old woman was bleaching cloth under the eaves. Suddenly a cow came there and, catching the cloth on its horn, ran away. The old woman became very angry and ran after it to get back the cloth, but the cow ran away somewhere and the day grew dark. The old woman looked around and found herself in front of the temple of Zenko-ji in Nagano. She could see the slobber of the cow by the light of the Buddha's statue. She read it as follows: "Don't complain about the god. It is from yourself that you find the way to a religious haven."
At these words the old woman immediately recovered a good heart and worshiped the Buddha. She went home with a clean, pious heart.
One day when she was going to pay homage to the Kannon of her village, the wind blew in and carried the cloth away to the mountainside. This remains now as the Cloth Rock of Saku. When the old woman arrived at the Kannon shrine, she found the cloth was hanging on the head of the Kannon's statue. So she came to believe in Buddha still more sincerely and she lived there as a nun.
This story may mean that Kannon, disguised as a cow. guided the old woman's fate. The Kannon is said to be the Kannon of Shason-ji on Nunobiki-yama [Mt. Pulling-the-Cloth].
THE TEMPLE OF RAIKYU GONGEN
Hito-dama, literally "human spirit" but more commonly rendered as "death fire," is described in the Minzokugaku Jiten as a yellowish flame with a long tail which comes out of the body just before death. In some places people say that a death fire has a face and speaks. This belief appears in the following legend, along with the idea of goryo.
Text from Densetsu no Echigo to Sado, I, pp. 88-go. Collected in Hojo-mura, Karina-gun, Niigata-ken.
IN ANCIENT TIMES castles stood on Mt. Hachikoku and in Hojo-mura. Mori Tamanosuke was the lord of the castle on Mt. Hachikoku and Hojo Tango was the lord of the castle in Hojo-mura. Being at odds with each other, they often had quarrels and sometimes fought battles. But Mori excelled his enemy in wisdom and valor. Moreover, he was a young and handsome warrior.
Lord Hojo had a daughter whose beauty surpassed that of the prettiest flower. The father married his daughter to Mori, and by so doing he outwardly pretended to become friendly with Mori, while secretly planning his destruction. Friendship now took the place of hostility between the two lords. The young couple lived happily for half a year.
It was one summer day that Hojo determined to carry out his plan to ruin Mori. He sent a messenger for
