77 villages, total.

Pronounce as in Italian, giving vowels full value: ch- as in "church."

THE YOTSUYA KWAIDAN

OR

O'IWA INARI

_BY THIS AUTHOR_

SAKURAMBO[U]
(THE FRUIT OF THE TREE)

Travel notes on thoughts and things Japanese, experienced
during a four years' sojourn in the country

Octavo. 339 pages.

MORE JAPONICO

A critique of the effect of an idea--communityism--on
the life and history of a people

Octavo. VI, 594 pages.

SAITO[U] MUSASHI-BO[U] BENKEI
(TALES OF THE WARS OF THE GEMPEI)

Being the story of the lives and adventures of
Iyo-no-Kami Minamoto Kuro[u] Yoshitsune and Saito[u]
Musashi-Bo[u] Benkei the Warrior Monk

Octavo. 2 Vols., XXI, 841 pages, with 69 full page
illustrations (frontispieces in color) and
three maps.

OGURI HANGWAN ICHIDAIKI
(TALES OF THE SAMURAI)

Being the story of the lives, the adventures, and the
mis-adventures of the Hangwan-dai Kojiro[u] Sukeshige
and Ternte-hime, his wife

Octavo. XV, 485 pages, with 45 full page illustrations
(frontispiece in color) and three maps.

[Illustration: THE O'IWA OF THE TAMIYA INARI JINJA OF ECHIZENBORI,
TOKYO]

_TALES OF THE TOKUGAWA_

THE YOTSUYA KWAIDAN

OR

O'IWA INARI

RETOLD FROM THE JAPANESE ORIGINALS BY JAMES S. DE BENNEVILLE

"The mainspring of human existence
is love (_nasake_), for others or--oneself."
--SEISHIN

PRESS OF J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY PHILADELPHIA, U.S.A. 1917

COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY JAMES SEGUIN DE BENNEVILLE

PRINTED AND COPYRIGHTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

PREFACE

Tales of the Tokugawa can well be introduced by two "wonder-stories" of
Nippon. One of these, the Yotsuya Kwaidan,[1] is presented in the
present volume, not so much because of the incidents involved and the
peculiar relation to a phase of Nipponese mentality, as from the fact
that it contains all the machinery of the Nipponese ghost story. From
this point of view the reading of one of these tales disposes of a whole
class of the native literature. Difference of detail is found. But
unless the tale carries some particular interest, as of curious
illustration of customs or history--the excuse for a second
presentation--a long course of such reading becomes more than
monotonous. It is unprofitable. Curiously enough, it can be said that
most Nipponese ghost stories are true. When a sword is found enshrined,
itself the malev