Recently, while groping about an old book shop, I found a collection
of Goblin Poetry in three volumes, containing many pictures of
goblins. The title of the collection is _Ky[=o]ka Hyaku-Monogatari_,
or "The Mad Poetry of the _Hyaku-Monogatari_." The _Hyaku-Monogatari_,
or "Hundred Tales," is a famous book of ghost stories. On the subject
of each of the stories, poems were composed at different times
by various persons,--poems of the sort called _Ky[=o]ka_, or Mad
Poetry,--and these were collected and edited to form the three volumes
of which I became the fortunate possessor. The collecting was done by
a certain Takumi Jingor[=o], who wrote under the literary pseudonym
"Temmér Ré[=o]jin" (Ancient of the Temmér Era). Takumi died in the
first year of Bunky[=u] (1861), at the good age of eighty; and his
collection seems to have been published in the sixth year of Kaéï
(1853). The pictures were made by an artist called Masazumi, who
worked under the pseudonym "Ry[=o]sai Kanjin."
From a prefatory note it appears that Takumi Jingor[=o] published his
collection with the hope of reviving interest in a once popular kind
of poetry which had fallen into neglect before the middle of the
century. The word _ky[=o]ka_ is written with a Chinese character
signifying "insane" or "crazy;" and it means a particular and
extraordinary variety of comic poetry. The form is that of the classic
_tanka_ of thirty-one syllables (arranged 57577);--but the subjects
are always the extreme reverse of classical; and the artistic effects
depend upon methods of verbal jugglery which cannot be explained
without the help of numerous examples. The collection published by
Takumi includes a good deal of matter in which a Western reader can
discover no merit; but the best of it has a distinctly grotesque
quality that reminds one of Hood's weird cleverness in playing with
grim subjects. This quality, and the peculiar Japanese method of
mingling the playful with the terrific, can be suggested and explained
only by reproducing in Romaji the texts of various _ky[=o]ka_, with
translations and notes.
The selection which I have made should prove interesting, not merely
because it will introduce the reader to a class of Japanese poetry
about which little or nothing has yet been written in English, but
much more because it will afford some glimpses of a supernatural world
which still remains for the most part unexplored. Without knowledge
of Far Eastern superstitions and folk-tales, no real understanding of
Japanese fiction or drama or poetry will ever become possible.
* * * * *
There are many hundreds of poems in the three volumes of the _Ky[=o]ka
Hyaku-Monogatari_; but the number of the ghosts and goblins falls
short of the one hundred suggested by the title. There are just
ninety-five. I could not expect to interest my readers in the whole
of this goblinry, and my selection includes less than one seventh
of the subjects. The Faceless Babe, The Long-Tongued Maiden,
The Three-Eyed Monk, The Pillow-Mover, The Thousand Heads, The
Acolyte-with-the-Lantern, The Stone-that-Cries-in-the-Night,
The Goblin-Heron, The Goblin-Wind, The Dragon-Lights, and The
Mountain-Nurse, did not much impress me. I omitted _ky[=o]ka_ dealing
with fancies too gruesome for Western nerves,--such as that of the
_Obumédori_,--also those treating of merely local tradition.
The subjects chosen represent national rather than provincial
folklore,--old beliefs (mostly of Chinese origin) once prevalent
throughout the country, and often referred to in its popular
literature.