Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn
**Concept Overview of Kwaidan**
"Kwaidan" is a collection of twenty stories that delve into themes of the bizarre, the macabre, and the supernatural within Japanese culture. Compiled by Lafcadio Hearn, the title translates to "weird tales" or "horror tales," reflecting the collection's focus on eerie and unsettling narratives often derived from ancient Japanese folklore and legends. Hearn's fascination with the exotic and the intersection of the natural and spiritual worlds is evident throughout the stories, which explore concepts like the influence of mythological deities and the Shinto belief in the interconnectedness of the living and the dead.
Among the notable tales is "The Story of Mimi-Nashi-Hōīchi," which recounts the fate of a blind musician who becomes entangled with the spirits of the dead, highlighting themes of sacrifice and the supernatural. Another story, "Ubazakura," presents a narrative of devotion and metamorphosis, showcasing the intertwining of life, death, and nature. The tales often exhibit a philosophical perspective on humanity's collective memory and the role of ancient gods. Overall, "Kwaidan" serves not only as a glimpse into Japanese ghost stories but also as a reflection of universal themes resonating with readers across cultures.
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Subject Terms
Kwaidan
First published: 1904
Type of work: Stories
Type of plot: Fantasy—mythological
Time of work: Various periods between 1200 and 1900
Locale: Primarily Japan
The Plot
Kwaidan translates as weird or horror tales. Lafcadio Hearn attributes most of the twenty stories in Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things to old Japanese books but adds that some were legends he acquired through informants. The entire book embodies his lifelong fascination with the exotic, particularly themes that associate the mysterious with the macabre and the morbid. These stories also suggest a faith in the ancient gods of all parts of the world based on the concept of the collective memory of humankind.
Mythological deities and forces represent the workings of nature and serve as instruments of communication with the infinite. Hearn uniformly conveys these elements of universal philosophy in Japanese dress. In the preface to an earlier collection, Some Chinese Ghosts (1887), he had described his work as that of “a man who tried to understand the Far East from books—and couldn’t,” but Kwaidan reflects Japanese culture throughout. Hearn considered ghosts as aspects of infinity, combining the god of nature with individual souls and manifestations of the Shinto notion that the world of the living is governed by the world of the dead.
One of Hearn’s favorites in the collection, “The Story of Mimi-Nashi-Hōīchi,” was told to him by his Japanese wife. Hōīchi was a blind singer befriended by a Buddhist priest, who offered him food and lodging at a temple in return for periodic musical performances. One evening during the priest’s absence, the singer was summoned by a mysterious stranger to what he thought was a noble castle, where he was commanded to recite episodes from a famous battle song. When he was summoned on subsequent nights, the priest noticed his absence and had him followed. Hōīchi was found sitting alone, playing and singing in a cemetery surrounded by the spirits of the dead. The next night, when the stranger repeated his summons, Hōīchi refused to obey, and the stranger cut off his ears. When the priest discovered him the next morning, he explained that Hōīchi had been saved from death because holy texts had been written all over his body except on his ears. He recovered from his injuries but was henceforth known as Mimi-nashi-Hōīchi, or Hōīchi-the-Earless.
The gods’ influence appears in the story “Ubazakura,” which resembles a tale from Ovid’s Metamorphoses (1-8 c.e.). When a young girl falls ill, her wet nurse prays for her recovery. The girl gets better, but the nurse fails in health. She tells the family that in her prayers she had promised the gods to have a cherry tree planted if her prayers were answered. She dies, and the family plants the tree, which has blossoms resembling the nipples of a woman’s breast.
Hearn’s fascination with nature appears in another tale of metamorphosis, “The Story of Aoyagi.” A young man takes shelter with an aged couple and their daughter, Green Willow. The young people fall in love overnight, and the parents entrust their daughter to the young man’s care. For five years, they have a happy marriage, until she informs him that she must die because her soul belongs to a tree that is being cut down. The grieving husband returns to the place he met her and finds only the stumps of two old willow trees and one young one.
The pure macabre is represented by “Rokuro-Kubi,” in which an itinerant priest lodging temporarily with a woodcutter leaves the hut at night and discovers the headless bodies of five goblins. Some distance away, he encounters their heads engaged in talking and eating. One of these heads seizes the priest’s sleeve with its teeth and refuses to let go. When the priest goes to the neighboring village, he is accused of murder, but the head eventually is recognized as that of a goblin. The priest later sells the head to a highway robber. The latter discovers that it belongs to a goblin and, seized with fear, takes it back to the place where its body had been. Not finding the corpse, the robber buries the head.