Tonight’s yokai is one that has been covered by famous yokai artists like Toriyama Sekien. Here in Mimibukuro it is referred to as Ikuji or ikuji (it isn’t clear if this is a singular monster or a species of creatures), while in other places it is known as ayakashi or ikuchi.

Negishi also gives us a fun folk etymology, linking the word “ikujinashi” (written “ikujinaki” here to reflect the archaic way it is written in Mimibukuro) to this yokai. Ikujinashi means a coward/weakling/loser/good-for-nothing person. Although it’s not clear how that word would relate to this creature…

The Thing in the Sea Called Ikuji

In the Seto Inland Sea and the waters off of Kyūshū there is a creature called an ikuji that sometimes climbs across the bows of ships. Its body resembles that of an eel, and its length is longer than can be measured. Once it climbs onto a ship’s bow it can supposedly take two, sometimes three days to slither all the way across. How many tens or hundreds of jō long it is, I can not even guess. The term “ikujinaki” (“good-for-nothing”) probably originates from this.

According to another person’s account, “smaller versions of these ikuji inhabit the coasts off of Izu and Hachijō. These creatures look like eels in the shape of rings, with no eyes or mouth. Therefore, the kind that is said to climb across the bows of ships is not one that has grown very long, but is merely looping around the bow in the shape of a ring.”

I don’t know which version is true, but they don’t particularly cause any harm to the ships.

Tonight’s story is bound to upset some readers, since it deals with the death of a fox. Among all the yokai I have covered, foxes are almost universally the most popular ones, no matter what country the readers are from.

The term in the original text that I translated as “evil spirits” is 妖氣 (yōki — strange spirit). It’s a term I haven’t used on this site or yokai.com before, and it’s not really a common term either, so I decided to translate it this way.

Even Evil Spirits Cannot Prevail Against Bravery

Among the retainers in Lord Tsuchiya’s hometown of Tsuchiura was a man named Komuro Jingorō. He was fiercely confident, fond of shooting his rifle, and enjoyed hunting in the mountains for pleasure.

The people of Tsuchiura revered a fox named Kanmyōin and its mate Otake, and they built an Inari shrine and honored the pair of foxes there.

One day, Jingorō shot and killed the female, Otake, with his matchlock, then cooked her up and ate her with sake. The male fox, Kanmyōin, possessed the wife of a farmer from a neighboring area not far from Tsuchiura Castle. She began to babble about all sorts of things, and spat curses about Jingorō.

The villagers, including her husband, gathered and demanded answers. “What an unreasonable fox! If he has a grudge against Jingorō, he should possess Jingorō – not take some unrelated person in a neighboring village and torment her…”

The fox said, “How could I possibly possess Jingorō, the man who killed and ate my wife? I’m terrified of even entering Tsuchiura, so I possessed your wife instead. Please, kill Jingorō for me!”

When word of this reached Tsuchiura, Jingorō heard about it and said, “What a detestable beast!”

He notified the chief magistrate and then railed against the villagers: “This insolent beast, reprehensibly tormenting people from another area! If you insist on continuing to possess others, I will speak with the lord and have the shrine the peasants put up destroyed, and even if it takes many nights and nights I will hunt Kanmyōin down and beat him to death!”

Then he went to the shrine and railed against the people there in the same manner. Immediately the fox possession ended, and nothing further happened after that.

Tonight’s story comes from Sado, where Negishi was stationed during his time as an administrator. The area in the story, Sotokaifu, is on the northwestern coast along the sea. I have never been to Sado, but it sounds like a fascinating place—an isolated island surrounded by mountains in the middle of the sea.

Fukui, where I live, also lies along the coast of the Sea of Japan. We get dramatic sea surges during the winter, with waves rising very high and then exploding against the cliffs, sending white foam into the air like a volcano. I am sure the sea must be even more furious out near Sado, and I can only imagine how terrifying it would be to ride in a wooden ship with no radio along the rocky coast of Sado in a storm.

Tonight’s story isn’t exactly a shocking or surprising ghost like some of the recent stories, but its atmosphere and the way it is told sits with me more deeply and lingers in my mind more than stories about bumping into ghosts on the street. It feels more creepy and forlorn. I hope it creeps you all out as well!

A Remnant of Spiritual Energy

The place called Sotokaifu on Sado Island is known for its particularly rough and violent seas.

When a certain man named Torii was working at the guardhouse at its harbor, one of the locals living on the beach reported that one night he heard the sound of a boat being hauled up onto the beach. Torii went down to the water’s edge to investigate; however, there was no sign of any such activity.

The same sound was heard for two or three nights. He went to investigate again, and he found a capsized boat that had drifted ashore near where the sound had come from. Surprised, he gathered a large group of laborers to pull the boat upright. Things like pots and kettles appeared to have sunk and were nowhere to be found. However, things like boxes and barrels were still inside the boat. One of the boxes bore the name of Kaifu Village.

“This must be the boat that was reported missing recently,” they said.

Word was sent to the village, and when people came to inspect it, they confirmed that it was indeed the missing boat. It had been returning from Aikawa, where it delivered a load of firewood. It encountered a severe storm off Washizaki and disappeared without a trace. Naturally, the spirits of the dead crew remained behind, and perhaps it was them that produced those sounds.

Such things are said to occur from time to time along the coast.

Tonight’s story comes from volume five of Mimibukuro, and it is another story about a smallpox-related death. In this case, the victim’s age is not mentioned, although it says he is a young samurai rather than a child. For my painting I decided to paint him as a young man who has come of age, but it could also have been a boy younger than that.

The place where the ghost appears, Shōheibashi, is still around, near the Kanda River in Tokyo. During the time of this ghost story, this area would have been much more overgrown and wild than the bustling metropolitan area it is today, and it would be much more fitting for the spooky atmosphere of a ghost tale.

For this blog, I translated the word for “wandering spirit” in the title into English, because it is one that I haven’t used frequently on this site or on yokai.com, so readers may not be familiar with it. That word is 遊魂 (yūkon), and literally just means wandering spirit.

An Eyewitness Account of a Wandering Spirit

This is a story about a young samurai in the service of the Nakayama family. He was exceptionally bright, and his master was especially fond of him and looked after him with care. However, toward the end of the seventh year of the Kansei era (1795), he contracted smallpox, which was rampant at the time, and died. His master was overcome with grief, and held a lavish funeral for him.

Now, a man who was close friends with Nakayama was passing through Shōheibashi when he suddenly came upon the young samurai. He knew nothing of the boy’s death, so he asked, “Is your master doing well?” The young samurai gave the appropriate greetings, and they parted ways.

However, when the man went to the Nakayama residence and inquired about the young samurai, he was told that the boy had died some time earlier.

The man was astonished and said, “Had I been alone, I might suppose that I had mistaken someone else for him.” But when he asked the servant who had been accompanying him, the servant replied that he remembered the young samurai very well and that there was no mistaking him.

They were both astonished.

Tonight’s story came to Negishi Yasumori from Andō Sōtai, who told him the story a few days back about the mysterious grave with a posthumous Buddhist name already written on it. The theme in both of these stories is similar, so I wonder of he had a particular fondness for this kind of name-related kidan, or if one story happened to job his memory about the other.

The idea of children writing or drawing premonitions of death has become such a trope in Hollywood these days that it can feel stale—but here we can see that this has been a thing for much longer, before Hollywood even existed!

I guess “creepy children” is a universal horror theme that crosses both time and cultures.

A Matter Difficult to Determine as Not Being Supernatural

Among the retainers of Andō Sōtai was a man named Kōemon—I forget his surname. This Kōemon initially had two sons. One of them was, by the age of five or six, exceptionally intelligent, and could read and write and write at a level that was remarkable for a child of his age. This boy died at the age of seven.

Shortly before his death, claiming he had been given a posthumous Buddhist name, he wrote the two characters for “Rōkyū” on several sheets of paper. His parents considered this to be ominous and scolded him, trying to stop him—but he paid them no need and continued to write them.

Since he died shortly after, they sent word to their family temple and made arrangements for the funeral. When the temple assigned the boy a posthumous Buddhist name, however, they bestowed upon him the name Ryōkyū. The family asked the temple priest if he had heard this name from them, the priest replied that he knew not the slightest thing about it.

Everybody sighed in wonder at this strange coincidence, so the story goes.

Tonight’s tale comes from volume four of Mimibukuro and discusses a place called Nitta Daimyōjin, or the tomb of Yoshioki. A Daimyōjin is a powerful god, (dai=great, myōjin=a god who works miracles on earth) and in this case refers to the spirit of Nitta Yoshioka, a samurai of the Nanbokuchō period—a great civil war that took place during the 14th century.

Yoshioka was a great hero, and after his execution his vengeful spirit supposedly hung around and began possessing people. In order to appease his spirit, he was enshrined near his place of death, and that shrine is known as Nitta Daimyōjin. It still stands today, in Ōta Ward, Tokyo.

Negishi attributes this story to “Genzui,” which refers to Akiyama Genzui, aka Akiyama Kakushū, a renowned Edo period physician who was also an acquaintance of Negishi.

I also like how this story ends with Negishi’s very reasonable justification for continuing to maintain shrines like this one!

A Matter in Which It Is Difficult to Say There Was No Divine Curse

This tale was recounted by Genzui.

When he was in his prime, he went out with four or five colleagues to gather herbs. The tomb of Yoshioki, also known as Nitta Daimyōjin, is a place that is now covered in bamboo, and a young novice whom they brought with them began picking herbs there. His colleagues tried to stop the boy, but he paid no attention and continued.

After they returned to their lodging, the novice suddenly began to babble, swearing and shouting things like: “You dare pick the herbs in my domain! How detestable!”

Everyone in the household was greatly alarmed. They returned the herbs to their original place, whereupon the boy returned to normal.

If the wrath of heroes remains frozen and undiminished, perhaps there is reason for future generations to continue revering them as gods?

Tonight’s story is another kidan-style tale with a skeptical title. It’s difficult to say there was no yūrei in this one—because how else do you explain it? And this was not just a rumor that Negishi picked up off the street, it was told to him directly by the man who experienced it.

Smallpox was one of the most deadly and feared diseases around the world before it was eradicated, and this was certainly no different in Edo period Japan. It was generally considered a rite of passage; that is how inevitable it was. You were going to get it at some point, and you would either live or die. People prayed to gods not to escape or avoid infection, but for the disease to pass lightly and without severe long-term effects. Yet plenty of people did die, many of them children, and there are lots of tales about supernatural events related to smallpox.

A Matter in Which It Is Difficult to Say There Was No Yūrei

A certain man named Kurihara, who used to come to my house, lived in Kohinata and regularly visited the home of a nearby hatamoto. He was particularly close to the family and was permitted to go into the inner chambers. The hatamoto had a son who was five years old. The boy was utterly adorable, and Kurihara doted on him and would bring him gifts whenever he visited.

When he had not visited for a while, a message arrived from that residence saying that he should by all means come that evening.

Kurihara entered through the front gate and walked down the hallway. The little boy came out as usual, tugged at Kurihara’s sleeve, and led him toward the back of the house. In the inner chambers, folding screens had been set up and there was a solemn, subdued atmosphere. Thinking that someone might be ill, Kurihara passed through calmly.

Just then, the master of the house came out and told him, “My son whom you adored so much has died of smallpox.”

Kurihara was not merely surprised; he told me himself that he was so scared that the hairs on his body stood on end.