Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things

Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things(Quái đàm,Kaidan,alsoKwaidan(archaic)),often shortened toKwaidan( "ghost story"), is a 1904 book byLafcadio Hearnthat features severalJapanese ghost storiesand a brief non-fiction study on insects.It was later used as the basis for a 1964 film,Kwaidan,byMasaki Kobayashi.

Stories

Hearn declares in his introduction to the first edition of the book, which he wrote on January 20, 1904, shortly before his death, that most of these stories were translated from old Japanese texts.However, a farmer inMusashi Provincetold him the tale ofYuki-Onna( "Snow Woman" ). Legends of Yuki-Onna could be found throughout Japan and predateKwaidan(includingGlimpses of Unfamiliar Japan), though Hearn was unaware of them having previously been written and his version of a harmful Yuki-Onna is original."Riki-Baka" is based on a personal experience of Hearn's. While he does not declare it in his introduction, "Hi-Mawari" – among the final narratives in the volume – seems to be a recollection of an experience in his childhood (it is, setting itself apart from almost all the others, written in thefirst personand set in ruralWales).

• "The Story of Mimi-nashi Hōichi"
• "Oshidori"
• "The Story of O-Tei"
• "Ubazakura"
• "Diplomacy"
• "Of a Mirror and a Bell"
• "Jikininki"
• "Mujina"
• "Rokurokubi"(description offolktale)
• "A Dead Secret"
• "Yuki-Onna"
• "The Story of Aoyagi"
• "Jiu-Roku-Zakura"
• "The Dream of Akinosuke"
• "Riki-Baka"
• "Hi-Mawari"
• "Hōrai"

Insect Studies

Hearn studied and wrote extensively on insects.The last section of Kwaidan contains three essays on insects and their connection to Chinese and Japanese beliefs.

• Butterflies:Personificationof the humansoul.
• Mosquitoes:Karmicreincarnationof jealous or greedy people in the form ofJiki-ketsu-gakior "blood-drinkingpretas".
• Ants:Mankind's superior in terms ofchastity,ethics,social structure,longevityandevolution.

See also

• Ghost stories
• Hoichi the Earless

External links

• Sacred-Texts.com's digitized edition of the book.

• KwaidanatProject Gutenberg
• Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Thingspublic domain audiobook atLibriVox