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NEARLY five hundred years ago there
was a samurai, named Isogai Héïdazaëmon
Takétsura, in the service of the Lord Kikuji, of
Kyûshû. This Isogai had inherited, from many
warlike ancestors, a natural aptitude for military
exercises,and extraordinary strength. While yet
a boy he had surpassed his teachers in the art
of swordsmanship, in archery, and in the use
of the spear, and had displayed all the capacities
of a daring and skillful soldier. Afterwards,
in the time of the Eikyô(1) war, he so
distinguished himself that high honors were
bestowed upon him. But when the house of
Kikuji came to ruin, Isogai found himself with
out a master. He might then easily have obtained
service under another daimyô; but as he had
never sought distinction for his own sake
alone, and as his heart remained true to his
former lord, he preferred to give up the world.
So he cut off his hair, and became a traveling
priest,
But always, under the koromo(2) of the
priest, Kwairyô kept warm within him the heart
of the samurai. As in other years he had
laughed at peril, so now also he scorned danger;
and in all weathers and all seasons he journeyed
to preach the good Law in places where no
other priest would have dared to go. For that
age was an age of violence and disorder; and
upon the highways there was no security for
the solitary traveler, even if he happened to be
a priest.
In the course of his first long journey,
Kwairyô had occasion to visit the province of
Kai. One evening, as he was traveling through
the mountains of that province, darkness overtook
him in a very lonesome district, leagues
away from any village. So he resigned himself
to pass the night under the stars; and having
found a suitable grassy spot, by the roadside,
he lay down there, and prepared to sleep. He
had always welcomed discomfort; and even a
bare rock was for him a good bed, when nothing
better could be found, and the root of a
pine-tree an excellent pillow. His body was
iron, and he never troubled himself about dews
or rain or frost or snow.
Scarcely had he lain down when a
man came along the road, carrying an axe and
a great bundle of chopped wood. This wood-cutter
halted on seeing Kwairyô lying down,
and, after a moment of silent observation, said
to him in a tone of great surprise:--
"What kind of a man can you be,
good Sir, that you dare to lie down alone in
such a place as this? . . . There are haunters
about here,--many of them. Are you not
afraid of Hairy Things?"
"My friend," cheerfully answered
Kwairyô, "I am only a wandering priest,--a
'Cloud-and-Water-Guest,' as folks call it:
Un-sui-
"You must be indeed a brave man,
Sir Priest," the peasant responded, "to lie down
here I This place has a bad name,--a very bad
name. But, as the proverb has it, Kunshi aya-yuki
ni chikayorazus ['The superior man does
not needlessly expose himself to peril']; and I
must assure you, Sir, that it is very dangerous
to sleep here. Therefore, although my house
is only a wretched thatched hut, let me beg
of you to come home with me at once. In the
way of food, I have nothing to offer you; but
there is a roof at least, and you can sleep under
it without risk."
He spoke earnestly; and Kwairyô, liking the
kindly tone of the man, accepted this
modest offer. The woodcutter guided him along
a narrow path, leading up from the main road
through mountain-forest. It was a rough and
dangerous path,
As Kwairyô entered the cottage with
his guide, he perceived four persons--men
and women
"From the kindness of your speech,
and from the very polite welcome given me by
your household, I imagine that you have not
always been a woodcutter. Perhaps you formerly
belonged to one of the upper classes?"
Smiling, the woodcutter answered:--
"Sir, you are not mistaken. Though
now living as you find me, I was once a person
of some distinction. My story is the story of a
ruined life--ruined by my own fault. I used
to be in the service of a daimyô; and my rank
in that service was not inconsiderable. But I
loved women and wine too well; and under the
influence of passion I acted wickedly. My
selfishness brought about the ruin of our house,
and caused the death of many persons. Retribution
followed me; and I long remained a
fugitive in the land. Now I often pray that I
may be able to make some atonement for the
evil which I did, and to reëstablish the ancestral
home. But I fear that I shall never find any
way of so doing. Nevertheless, I try to overcome
the karma of my errors by sincere repentance,
and by helping, as far as I can, those
who are unfortunate."
Kwairyô was pleased by this announcement
of good resolve; and he said to the
aruji:--
"My friend, I have had occasion to
observe that men, prone to folly in their youth,
may in after years become very earnest in right
living. In the holy sûtras it is written that those
strongest in wrong-doing can become, by power
of good resolve, the strongest in right-doing. I
do not doubt that you have a good heart; and
I hope that better fortune will come to you.
To-night I shall recite the sûtras for your sake,
and pray that you may obtain the force to overcome
the karma of any past errors."
With these assurances, Kwairyô bade
the aruji good-night; and his host showed him
to a very small side-room, where a bed had been
made ready. Then all went to sleep except the
priest, who began to read the sûtras by the
light of a paper lantern. Until a late hour he
continued to read and pray: then he opened
a window in his little sleeping-room, to take a
last look at the landscape before lying down.
The night was beautiful: there was no cloud in
the sky; there was no wind; and the strong
moonlight threw down sharp black shadows
of foliage, and glittered on the dews of the
garden. Shrillings of crickets and bell-insects
made a musical tumult; and the sound of the
neighboring cascade deepened with the night.
Kwairyô felt thirsty as he listened to the noise
of the water; and, remembering the bamboo
aqueduct at the rear of the house, he thought
that he could go there and get a drink without
disturbing the sleeping household. Very gently
he pushed apart the sliding-screens that separated
his room from the main apartment; and
he saw, by the light of the lantern, five recumbent
bodies
For one instant he stood bewildered,
"Either this is an illusion made by goblins, or
I have been lured into the dwelling of a Rokuro-Kubi.
. . . In the book Sôshinki it is written
that if one find the body of a Rokuro-Kubi without
its head, and remove the body to another
place, the head will never be able to join itself
again to the neck. And the book further says
that when the head comes back and finds that
its body has been moved, it will strike itself
upon the flcor three times,
He seized the body of the aruji by
the feet, pulled it to the window, and pushed it
out. Then he went to the back-door, which he
found barred; and he surmised that the heads
had made their exit through the smoke-hole in
the roof, which had been left open. Gently
unbarring the door, he made his way to the garden,
and proceeded with all possible caution to
the grove beyond it. He heard voices talking
in the grove; and he went in the direction of
the voices,
"Ah, that traveling priest who came
to-night!
Another head
"That traveling priest is not in the
house;--he is gone! But that is not the worst
of the matter. He has taken the body of our
aruji; and I do not know where he has put it."
At this announcement the head of
the aruji
"Since my body has been moved, to
rejoin it is not possible! Then I must die!
. . . And all through the work of that priest!
Before I die I will get at that priest!--I will
tear him!--I will devour him! . . . And there
he is--behind that tree!
In the same moment the head of the
aruji, followed by the other four heads, sprang
at Kwairyô. But the strong priest had already
armed himself by plucking up a young tree;
and with that tree he struck the heads as they
came,
With the head still hanging to his
sleeve he went back to the house, and there
caught sight of the other four Rokuro-Kubi
squatting together, with their bruised and
bleeding heads reunited to their bodies. But when
they perceived him at the back-door all screamed,
"The priest! the priest!"
Eastward the sky was brightening;
day was about to dawn; and Kwairyô knew
that the power of the goblins was limited to
the hours of darkness. He looked at the head
clinging to his sleeve,--its face all fouled with
blood and foam and clay; and he laughed aloud
as he thought to himself: "What a
miyagé!(4)
Right on he journeyed, until he came
to Suwa in Shinano; and into the main street of
Suwa he solemnly strode, with the head dangling
at his elbow. Then women fainted, and
children screamed and ran away; and there was
a great crowding and clamoring until the torité
(as the police of those days were called) seized
the priest, and took him to jail. For they supposed
the head to be the head of a murdered
man who, in the moment of being killed, had
caught the murderer's sleeve in his teeth. As
for Kwairyô, he only smiled and said nothing
when they questioned him. So, after having
passed a night in prison, he was brought before
the magistrates of the district. Then he was
ordered to explain how he, a priest, had been
found with the head of a man fastened to his
sleeve, and why he had dared thus shamelessly
to parade his crime in the sight of the people.
Kwairyô laughed long and loudly at
these questions; and then he said:--
"Sirs, I did not fasten the head to
my sleeve: it fastened itself there--much
against my will. And I have not committed
any crime. For this is not the head of a man;
it is the head of a goblin;--and, if I caused
the death of the goblin, I did not do so by
any shedding of blood, but simply by taking
the precautions necessary to assure my own
safety." . . . And he proceeded to relate the
whole of the adventure,
But the magistrates did not laugh.
They judged him to be a hardened criminal,
and his story an insult to their intelligence.
Therefore, without further questioning, they
decided to order his immediate execution,
"Let us first examine the head carefully;
for this, I think, has not yet been done.
If the priest has spoken truth, the head itself
should bear witness for him. . . Bring the head
here!"
So the head, still holding in its teeth
the koromo that had been stripped from
Kwairyô's shoulders, was put before the judges. The
old man turned it round and round, carefully
examined it, and discovered, on the nape of its
neck, several strange red characters. He called
the attention of his colleagues to these, and
also bade them observe that the edges of the
neck nowhere presented the appearance of having
been cut by any weapon. On the contrary,
the line of severance was smooth as the line
at which a falling leaf detaches itself from the
stem. . . Then said the elder:--
"I am quite sure that the priest told
us nothing but the truth. This is the head of a
Rokuro-Kubi. In the book
Nan-hô-ï
"You have guessed rightly, Sir,"
Kwairyô responded. "Before becoming a priest,
I long followed the profession of arms; and in
those days I never feared man or devil. My
name then was Isogai Héïdazaëmon
Takétsura,
of Kyûshû: there may be some among you
who remember it."
At the utterance of that name, a murmur
of admiration filled the court-room; for
there were many present who remembered it.
And Kwairyô immediately found himself among
friends instead of judges,
With honor they escorted him to the residence
of the daimyô, who welcomed him, and feasted
him, and made him a handsome present before
allowing him to depart. When Kwairyô left
Suwa, he was as happy as any priest is permitted
to be in this transitory world. As for
the head, he took it with him,
And now it only remains to tell what
became of the head.
A day or two after leaving Suwa,
Kwairyô met with a robber, who stopped him
in a lonesome place, and bade him strip.
Kwairyô at once removed his koromo, and offered
it to the robber, who then first perceived
what was hanging to the sleeve. Though brave,
the highwayman was startled: he dropped the
garment, and sprang back. Then he cried
out:--
Kwairyô answered:--
"I shall let you have the head and
the robe if you insist; but I must tell you that
this is not the head of a man. It is a goblin's
head. So, if you buy it, and have any trouble
in consequence, please to remember that you
were not deceived by me."
"What a nice priest you are!" exclaimed
the robber. "You kill men, and jest
about it! . . . But I am really in earnest.
Here is my robe; and here is the money;
"Take the thing," said Kwairyô. "I
was not joking. The only joke--if there be
any joke at all--is that you are fool enough
to pay good money for a goblin's head." And
Kwairyô, loudly laughing, went upon his way.
Thus the robber got the head and the
koromo; and for some time he played
goblin-priest upon the highways. But, reaching the
neighborhood of Suwa, he there learned the
real history of the head; and he then became
afraid that the spirit of the Rokuro-Kubi might
give him trouble. So he made up his mind to
take back the head to the place from which it
had come, and to bury it with its body. He
found his way to the lonely cottage in the
mountains of Kai; but nobody was there, and
he could not discover the body. Therefore he
buried the head by itself, in the grove behind
the cottage; and he had a tombstone set up
over the grave; and he caused a Ségaki-service
to be performed on behalf of the spirit of the
Rokuro-Kubi. And that tombstone (End.)
(1) The period of Eikyô lasted from 1429 to
1441.
(2) The upper robe of a Buddhist priest is thus
called.
(3) A sort of little fireplace, contrived in the
floor of a room, is thus described. The ro is
usually a square shaDow cavity, lined with metal
and half-filled with ashes, in which charcoal
lighted.
(4) A present made to friends or to the household on
returning from a journey is thus called. Ordinarily, of
course, the miyagé consists of something produced
in the locality to which the journey has been made:
this is the point of Kwairyô's jest.