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T5 — Death, Ghosts and Omens

The dead who come back, and the signs that come before a death.

Tono25 tales

Tale 10The sister's scream heard at the mountain hutA man who had lodged in a hut deep in the mountains to gather mushrooms heard, late at night, a woman's cry of "kyaa" from far off, and his heart…
Tale 11The strife between daughter-in-law and mother-in-law, and Magoshiro's violenceFrom discord between a daughter-in-law and her mother-in-law, the son Magoshiro sharpened a great sickle meaning to kill his mother, shut all the…
Tale 18The decline of the house the zashiki-warashi leftIt was said that two child goddesses lived in the house of Yamaguchi Magozaemon, an old family, but one day a man met two unfamiliar girls by a…
Tale 19A whole family wiped out by poisonous mushroomsIn Magozaemon's house, unfamiliar mushrooms grew around a pear tree. Following a saying that if well stirred in a water tub they would not poison…
Tale 20The snake's curse and the snake moundBefore the ill fortune came, while stirring the fodder a large snake, a serpent, often a spirit in disguise, appeared, and though the master told…
Tale 22The dead grandmother's ghostsOn the night the great-grandmother of the Sasaki family died, the mother and grandmother who were in the room for the wake saw the figure of the dead…
Tale 23The spirit of an old woman appeared on the eve of the memorialOn the eve of the fourteenth-day memorial, the people who had finished the nembutsu prayers and were about to go home saw an old woman sitting on a…
Tale 52The umaoidori and the omen of famineThe umaoidori, the bird said to call the horses home, resembled a cuckoo. A servant in the household of a choja, a very rich man, let one horse out…
Tale 54The house of the dead at the bottom of the poolA servant of a choja, a very rich man, in Kawai village dropped an axe into a pool, and when he went down into the bottom of the water, he found the…
Tale 65The rain omen of AbegajoOn the steep cliffside of Mount Hayachine there was a rock called Abegajo, and it was said that the mother of Abe no Sadato still lived there. On…
Tale 77The illusion of a dead man he stepped overOn the night of a funeral, Tajiri Chozaburo was returning home alone, a little behind the others, when he found an unknown man lying on his back…
Tale 78The man in a snow cloak and a portent of deathChozo, on his way home from a night out, met a man wearing a snow cloak before the gate. When he looked at him with suspicion, the man vanished…
Tale 79The man with hands tucked in his robe who vanished at the entranceWhen the previous Chozo came home from a night of amusement, a man with his hands tucked into the front of his robe was standing at the gate.…
Tale 81A pale man lies against the cloud wallWhen Maekawa Mankichi was coming home from a night of pleasure, he looked at the cloud wall at the corner of the veranda and saw a pale-faced man…
Tale 82A shadow-figure standing in the sitting roomWhen Tajiri Marukichi was a boy, he went into the sitting room meaning to go to the privy, and at the boundary with the parlor there stood a human…
Tale 86The father's spirit that appeared at the hour of deathWhen the father of Masa, a tofu-maker, was gravely ill and near death, he appeared one evening at the site where the ground was being tamped for a…
Tale 87The master who visited the temple just before deathWhen the master of a wealthy house in Tono was near death from a long illness, he visited the family temple one day and talked with the priest of…
Tale 88A gravely ill old man visits the templeNear Jokenji Temple, an old man suffering from a grave illness was met, who said that since he had felt well for two or three days, he was going to…
Tale 90The big man of Tengumori and a young man's gruesome deathIn a field at the foot of Tengumori, a young man who was about to doze off saw a big man with a very red face appear before him. The young man, fond…
Tale 91The death of Torigozen who disturbed the mountain godsTorigozen, who knew the mountains well, went out to gather mushrooms and came upon a red-faced man and woman talking in the shadow of a large rock.…
Tale 93The ijin who told of a child's death at the passKikuchi Kikuzo was crossing Fuefuki Pass to fetch his wife, so she could look after their sick child, when on a dim mountain road a man with a red…
Tale 96The feebleminded man who predicted firesA feebleminded man who lived in the town of Tono had a habit of picking up bits of wood and dust from the road and sniffing them, and from time to…
Tale 97A near-death experience in typhoid feverWhen Kikuchi Matsunojo of Iide fell critically ill with typhoid fever, he flew as if through the air toward his family temple, and within its gate…
Tale 99The spirit of the wife lost in the tsunamiFukuji of Tsuchibuchi village lost his wife and children in a great tsunami, and lived in a hut built on the site of his old house. One night in the…
Tale 101The mystery of a fox that manipulated a dead manA traveler stayed the night at an acquaintance's house in Toyomane village, and a dead person rose up on the floor. When he looked closely, he saw a…

Shiwa District2 tales