Where there should have been two eyes, a mouth and a nose, was nothing but a featureless blank of skin as smooth as an egg. Suddenly, the girl turned around and dropped her sleeve from her hand. "O-jochu." he pleaded, "O-jochu, listen to me, just for one moment-" The man felt his heart swell with pity and laid his hand on her shoulder. She continued to moan and sob behind her sleeve, but her cries were slower, more subdued. The girl rose up slowly, turning her back to him. This is no place for a young lady at night! Do not cry, I beg of you! Only tell me how I may help you and I will!" "O-jochu," he said again, as gently as he could, "Please listen to me. Tell me what the trouble is, and if there be any way to help you, I shall do it."īut she continued to weep, hiding her face from him with one of her long sleeves. "O-jochu (young girl)," he exclaimed, approaching her, "O-jochu, do not cry like that. He was a kind man, and pity gripped his heart. As he came closer he saw that she was lithe, handsomely dressed and that her hair was arranged like that of a young girl from a good family. Fearing that she intended to drown herself, he stopped near her to offer his help. She was weeping bitterly and her hands covered her face completely as she heaved forward towards the moat.
One night at a late hour, he was hurrying up the Kii-no-kuni-zaka when he saw a woman crouching by the moat all alone. The last man who saw the Mujina was an old merchant of the Kyobashi quarter. It's said that a mujina- a faceless woman- roamed freely there. On the other side of the road extend the long and lofty walls of an imperial palace.īefore street lamps and rickshaws became commonplace, this neighborhood was very lonely after dark, and belated pedestrians would go miles out of their way to avoid it after sunset. On one side of the slope you see an ancient moat, deep and very wide, with high green banks rising up to some place of gardens. On the Akasaka road in Tokyo there is a slope called Kii-no-kuni-zaka, which means the Slope of the Province of Kii. This year's tale is adapted from Lafcadio Hearn's KWAIDAN, a classic book of Japanese ghost stories. Every Halloween we share a scary folktale that's been keeping Japanese children up at night for centuries.
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