“Does not the priest on the hill sometimes perform the funeral service
for your dead?”
“What priest?” the young man asked.
“The priest who yesterday evening directed me to this village,”
answered Musō. “I called at his _anjitsu_ on the hill yonder. He
refused me lodging, but told me the way here.”
The listeners looked at each other, as in astonishment; and, after a
moment of silence, the master of the house said:—
“Reverend Sir, there is no priest and there is no _anjitsu_ on the
hill. For the time of many generations there has not been any
resident-priest in this neighborhood.”
Musō said nothing more on the subject; for it was evident that his kind
hosts supposed him to have been deluded by some goblin. But after
having bidden them farewell, and obtained all necessary information as
to his road, he determined to look again for the hermitage on the hill,
and so to ascertain whether he had really been deceived. He found the
_anjitsu_ without any difficulty; and, this time, its aged occupant
invited him to enter. When he had done so, the hermit humbly bowed down
before him, exclaiming:—“Ah! I am ashamed!—I am very much ashamed!—I am
exceedingly ashamed!”
“You need not be ashamed for having refused me shelter,” said Musō.
“You directed me to the village yonder, where I was very kindly
treated; and I thank you for that favor.”
“I can give no man shelter,” the recluse made answer;—“and it is not
for the refusal that I am ashamed. I am ashamed only that you should
have seen me in my real shape,—for it was I who devoured the corpse and
the offerings last night before your eyes... Know, reverend Sir, that I
am a _jikininki_,[1]—an eater of human flesh. Have pity upon me, and
suffer me to confess the secret fault by which I became reduced to this
condition.
“A long, long time ago, I was a priest in this desolate region. There
was no other priest for many leagues around. So, in that time, the
bodies of the mountain-folk who died used to be brought here,—sometimes
from great distances,—in order that I might repeat over them the holy
service. But I repeated the service and performed the rites only as a
matter of business;—I thought only of the food and the clothes that my
sacred profession enabled me to gain. And because of this selfish
impiety I was reborn, immediately after my death, into the state of a
_jikininki_. Since then I have been obliged to feed upon the corpses of
the people who die in this district: every one of them I must devour in
the way that you saw last night... Now, reverend Sir, let me beseech
you to perform a Ségaki-service[2] for me: help me by your prayers, I
entreat you, so that I may be soon able to escape from this horrible
state of existence”...
No sooner had the hermit uttered this petition than he disappeared; and
the hermitage also disappeared at the same instant. And Musō Kokushi
found himself kneeling alone in the high grass, beside an ancient and
moss-grown tomb of the form called _go-rin-ishi_,[3] which seemed to be
the tomb of a priest.