ncle until the next year. The uncle's home
was, however, inconveniently remote, and so the young man stayed as a
visitor at his father's house for the remaining months of the year,
after which he became once more a member of the household. Thus the
inconvenience and the evil were both avoided.[*282]

Another story comes to my mind now of a dear old lady, the Go Inkyo Sama
of a house of high rank, who late in life came to T[=o]ky[=o] to live
with her brother and his young and somewhat foreignized wife. The
brother himself, while not a Christian, had little belief in the old
superstitions of his people; his wife was a professing Christian. Soon
after the old lady's arrival in T[=o]ky[=o], her sister-in-law fell ill,
and before she had recovered her strength the children, one after
another, came down with various diseases, which, though in no case
fatal, kept the family in a state of anxiety for more than a year. The
old lady was quite sure that there was some witchcraft or art-magic at
work among her dear ones, and, after consulting the servants (for she
knew that she could expect no sympathy in her plans from either her
brother or his wife), she betook herself to a fortune-teller to discover
through his means the causes of the illness in the family. The
fortune-teller revealed to her the fact that two occult forces were at
work bringing evil upon the house. One was the evil spirit of a spring
or well that had been choked with stones, or otherwise obstructed in its
flow, and that chose this way of bringing its afflictions to the
attention of mortals. The other was the spirit of a horse that had once
belonged in the family, and that after death revenged itself upon its
former masters for the hard service wherewith it had been made to serve.
The only way in which these two powers could be appeased would be by
finding the well, and removing the obstructions that choked it, and by
erecting an image of the horse and offering to it cakes and other
meat-offerings. The fortune-teller hinted, moreover, that for a
consideration he might be able to afford material aid in the search for
the well.

At this information Go Inkyo Sama was much perturbed, for further aid
for her afflicted family seemed to require the use of money, and of that
commodity she had very little, being mainly dependent upon her brother
for support. She returned to her home and consulted the servants upon
the matter; but though they quite agreed with her that so