Modern dictionaries ignore the uncanny significations of the word
_Yanari_,--only telling us that it means the sound of the shaking of
a house during an earthquake. But the word used to mean the noise of
the shaking of a house moved by a goblin; and the invisible shaker was
also called _Yanari_. When, without apparent cause, some house would
shudder and creak and groan in the night, folk used to suppose that it
was being shaken from without by supernatural malevolence.
Tokonoma ni
Ikéshi tachiki mo
Taoré-keri;
Yanari ni yama no
Ugoku kakémono!
[_Even the live tree set in the alcove has fallen down; and
the mountains in the hanging picture tremble to the quaking
made by the Yanari!_[50]]
[Footnote 50: The _tokonoma_ in a Japanese room is a sort of
ornamental recess or alcove, in which a picture is usually hung, and
vases of flowers, or a dwarf tree, are placed.]