The body was cold as ice; the heart had long ceased to beat, yet there were no other signs of death. Nobody even spoke of burying the woman. She had died of grief and anger at having been divorced. It would have been useless to bury her,—because the last undying wish of a dying person […]
The daimyō’s wife was dying, and knew that she was dying. She had not been able to leave her bed since the early autumn of the tenth Bunsei. It was now the fourth month of the twelfth Bunsei,—the year 1829 by Western counting; and the cherry-trees were blossoming. She thought of the cherry-trees in her garden, […]
“I am not afraid to die,” said the dying wife; — “there is only one thing that troubles me now. I wish that I could know who will take my place in this house.” “My dear one,” answered the sorrowing husband, “nobody shall ever take your place in my home. I will never, never marry […]
The exhibition has been going on for a while, but I’ve been: depressed; busy with my forced relocation; depressed; busy with looking for a construction crew that can handle the repairing works in my house; depressed; busy with work; depressed; away on a journey. Said journey helped and I’m not depressed anymore (I know, that’s […]
Today’s tale on my Patreon is another story from Lafcadio Hearn’s selection of ghost tales, and it’s free to read. It features a love bloomed in a snowstorm, enchantment and a curse, heartbreak and a weeping willow.
Today’s story on the Patreon is another Japanese ghost tale: the heartbreaking story of a cherry tree that blooms under the snow. Today’s story costs a coffee (and it will give you access to all stories throughout the month), but some of them will be free-to-read, so keep an eye out.
Katsukawa Shun’ei (1762 – 1819) is a Japanese artist of the ukiyo-e aesthetics. Today on my Patreon we take a look at his 1790 Book of Ghost Stories preserved at the MET.
A cat-witch, or bakeneko, was haunting the grounds of the temple in Okabe, disguised as an old woman. Let’s take a look at her legend today on the Patreon.
The Jikininki is a human-eating Japanese ghost who features in Lafcadio Hearn’s collection of spooky stuff called Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things. For those of you who follow the blog, I have written about him here and particularly I talked about three of his tales: Oshidori, a tragic tale of love and loss […]
Happy Valentine’s Day! Do you remember when we started, before going down the rabbit hole of the Heike Monogatari? I was taking a look at the Japanese Ghost Tales by Lafcadio Hearn, so today let’s take a look at the second tale of the collection, which is perfect because it’s also tragic and romantic. It’s […]