One may still sometimes hear in the streets a very humorous song, which
every one in town formerly knew by heart, celebrating the Seven Wonders
of Matsue. For Matsue was formerly divided into seven quarters, in each
of which some extraordinary object or person was to be seen. It is now
divided into five religious districts, each containing a temple of the
State religion. People living within those districts are called ujiko,
and the temple the ujigami, or dwelling-place of the tutelary god. The
ujiko must support the ujigami. (Every village and town has at least one
ujigami.)
There is probably not one of the multitudinous temples of Matsue which
has not some marvellous tradition attached to it; each of the districts
has many legends; and I think that each of the thirty-three streets
has its own special ghost story. Of these ghost stories I cite two
specimens: they are quite representative of one variety of Japanese
folk-lore.
Near to the Fu-mon-in temple, which is in the north-eastern quarter,
there is a bridge called Adzuki-togi-bashi, or The Bridge of the Washing
of Peas. For it was said in other years that nightly a phantom woman sat
beneath that bridge washing phantom peas. There is an exquisite
Japanese iris-flower, of rainbow-violet colour, which flower is
named kaki-tsubata; and there is a song about that flower called
kaki-tsubata-no-uta. Now this song must never be sung near the
Adzuki-togi-bashi, because, for some strange reason which seems to have
been forgotten, the ghosts haunting that place become so angry upon
hearing it that to sing it there is to expose one's self to the most
frightful calamities. There was once a samurai who feared nothing,
who one night went to that bridge and loudly sang the song. No ghost
appearing, he laughed and went home. At the gate of his house he met
a beautiful tall woman whom he had never seen before, and who, bowing,
presented him with a lacquered box-fumi-bako--such as women keep their
letters in. He bowed to her in his knightly way; but she said, 'I am
only the servant--this is my mistress's gift,' and vanished out of
his sight. Opening the box, he saw the bleeding head of a young child.
Entering his house, he found upon the floor of the guest-room the dead
body of his own infant son with the head torn off.
Of the cemetery Dai-Oji, which is in the street called Nakabaramachi,
this story is told. In Nakabaramachi there is an ameya, or little shop
in which midzu-ame is sold--the amber-tinted syrup, made of malt, which
is given to children when milk cannot be obtained for them. Every night
at a late hour there came to that shop a very pale woman, all in white,
to buy one rin [8] worth of midzu-ame. The ame-seller wondered that she
was so thin and pale, and often questioned her kindly; but she answered
nothing. At last one night he followed her, out of curiosity. She went
to the cemetery; and he became afraid and returned.
The next night the woman came again, but bought no midzu-ame, and only
beckoned to the man to go with her. He followed her, with friends, into
the cemetery. She walked to a certain tomb, and there disappeared; and
they heard, under the ground, the crying of a child. Opening the tomb,
they saw within it the corpse of the woman who nightly visited the
ameya, with a living infant, laughing to see the lantern light, and
beside the infant a little cup of midzu-ame. For the mother had been
prematurely buried; the child was born in the tomb, and the ghost of the
mother had thus provided for it--love being stronger than death.