Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

“Mr. Moku… what’s this?…”

When asked by the child，he stroked his crimson nose tip，

“They’re beautiful garments, you know.”

This was utterly pathetic.
Mokuwa-ka of the town had set up old mats at both ends, erected bamboo poles wrapped with sasa leaves, strung a rope between them, and hung numerous spider webs across it to begin his business.
He stared unblinkingly—yet perhaps it was precisely that crimson nose tip that made him oddly endearing, like a crow with jet-black beak undergoing its own flowing baptism.
There in the precincts of the Honorable Dissenting Sect Shrine—beside the wooden torii gate with its weathered plaque, backed by the plank walls of the wealthy Shimai family’s storehouse—he had positioned his stall facing south for the autumn festival.

Presumably to sell, he sat properly among the merchants, gazing at the thin clouds in the clear sky.

The candy—even now sold by warming it over buried embers in pots, wrapped around hemp-stalk sticks called ame-n-bō—stood as a lonely sight amid the bustling festival. O-ichi sweets, Mame-neji twists, and Hakka-tō mints were traded by old women with white hair bound in hand towels.
The old man who dealt in all manner of goods merely stood silent with his hands tucked into his stiff dark blue sleeves.
The ones doing brisk business noisily fanned their grilled sweet-flag dumplings while calling “Sweet syrup! Sweet syrup!”
...the regulars with familiar faces and stalls year after year—itinerant merchants emerging from the outskirts.
The sellers of Tamba lanterns and sea bladder cherries had staked prime positions near the water basin under a great crape myrtle tree alongside balloon vendors, while those beyond the torii gate were capricious mountain peddlers who'd wandered down on a whim.

——
The wares consisted of fruits.
Peaches were late.
Small pears, crabapples, and chestnuts remained raw... those that were boiled were sold at different stalls alongside sweet potatoes.... Unlike the Oshu region, crimson fruits grew scarcely any in that part of Kaeetsu.
There, arranged like a forest, were clusters of black-purple wild grapes and yellow-green cornus fruits—still clinging to their vines and branches—their bittersweet tang so intense that raccoon dogs would choke and rabbits would stagger drunk on this rare delicacy.

This same shop had three mats, spaced three stalls apart.
Two women wearing sedge hats were lined up, and at one end stood a single old man resembling a horse handler, his face wrapped in a cloth.
And at one end of the row, the aforementioned Mokuwa-ka hung spider webs on a rope and set up his stall.

“What’s this?”

“They’re beautiful garments—won’t you buy some?” he sniffled.

They couldn’t tell how old he was—Moku’s age remained unclear.
From childhood, he had seemed like an adult; even as an adult, he resembled a child.
He was originally—in this town—a live-in student and errand boy at the household of a physician with an imposing polished entranceway, though he could hardly have been of much use; merely a gluttonous freeloader.

Despite propriety, appearance, and even his emaciated frame requiring proper hakama trousers, he persistently wore a lightly soiled striped apron—such was the extremity of his gluttony—and now people had died and the mansion had passed to others.
The physician, as remembered by the town’s children, was already quite elderly—a fair-skinned man with slender, beautiful fingers—authoritative yet speaking as gently as a woman. … His wife had a ruddy face, broad-shouldered and stout, her hair in a large round chignon.
Her downturned eyes sloped toward greasy cheeks, like this... always letting stray strands hang disheveled.
Some said she had risen from a maidservant; others claimed she was a reformed mistress.
The true wife, needless to say regarding social interactions, never showed herself at the front gate or back entrance—not quite confined to a parlor prison, but a long-time madwoman sequestered deep within.
Now, Red-Nose—a calamity resembling neither octopus nor kappa—was treated with all the dignity of riverbed gravel, yet he was in truth the biological son and firstborn of that madwoman from the previous marriage; this strange creature at birth remained peculiar as he grew slightly older, which so tormented the true wife that she too lost her mind—she who was once said to have been the daughter of a provincial elder and a beauty…

In mid-autumn one year, an evening thunderstorm swelled into a tempestuous night—around what must have been past ten o'clock—when through the lashing lightning came a woman's voice: shrill as an evening cicada's cry, desolate yet crystalline, its piercing shrieks of laughter echoing high across the heavens as though skimming treetops and clouds, swept two or three times—no, four or five—by the gale through this town... Fearing malevolent spirits at work, young and old alike held their breath. Later it was learned that on that night, Saiiki the physician's true wife had fled her home, wandered the streets until her exhausted body collapsed against the shrine torii's pillar—her black hair whipping wild, garments scaled like fish under lightning's glare, skin snow-pale turned ghostly blue under the downpour—where she writhed like some uncanny fish until pursuers found her and hauled her back to that physician's house.
Before long, she was placed on a four-sided bier called a *kuroki* and burned to ashes.
Saiiki's wife had become a mermaid—that tempest had been the tide coming to claim her from the northern sea's shore, she declared—

The following month, Saiiki Kokushu died from a sudden illness.
What followed was utter chaos.
The substitute physician who had been adopted as heir—along with the portly woman who had risen from lowly origins—sold off the family storehouse and vanished without a trace... down to the male and female servants and even the pharmacy staff.
They took whatever they could grab, scattering in disarray like owls tossing dead leaves.
……The medicine-reeking desolate mansion had a winter-dated 'For Sale' sign posted.

In the desolate dusk… there stood Honorable Mokuwa-ka—as if fallen from a roof—his red nose dangling faintly like a lantern amidst the rubbish heap where the vacant lot’s puddle served as the town’s emergency water supply, beneath the withered willow’s evening frost.
...Parents do not name their child Mokusuke or Mokuzō.
Wait—his grandfather, who had been a court physician, chose it, so his real name is supposedly Moku no Jō.

――Now then, let us return to the wooden torii gate.

II

There—where Mokuwa-ka now spread his uncanny spider webs, at the corner beyond this torii gate where the physician’s estate once had its back entrance—long ago dwelled an old man called Bantarō: a town runner who handled shrine rituals, emergency errands, delivering condolence returns, autumn night watches, and winter snow-clearing assistance… A single structure remained—half-rotted row-house timbers clinging to the semblance of a makeshift hut.

The whole town had installed Mokuwa-ka there; whether he proved useful or not was beside the point—through a communal fund, they provided him with a modest stipend.

“Moku-san, where’d you get these from?”

“Under the floorboards? Or maybe the eaves.”

When regular passersby saw those spider webs and called out with a bitter smile—

“That’s incorrect.”

Shaking his head, nose and all,

“From my hometown, heh,” he said with a snorting cough.
This wretch put on an air of utmost arrogance, yet carried the desolation of an aged man.
What could not be disputed was that from his grandfather the court physician to his father Tenyō—passed down through generations—when taking the pulse and cutting off the little finger, the condition remained entirely unchanged.

When Mokuwa-ka spoke of "sato," it did not mean a mountain village among those hills.
To annotate: this "sato" signified not a village but a mountain domain—written as "hometown," it became...ancestral home.

Eight or nine years ago in late spring, children had gathered in this same shrine precincts to fly kites and play—Mokuwa-ka, with his large-headed shaven pate and a spine towering above all others, flew his kite stingily with minimal string, its dance barely skimming the crape myrtle branches amidst mountain peaks, pine-studded skies, and paulownia treetops.

"Come, great wind! Come, great wind!"

"Away, small breeze! Away, small breeze…"

Amidst the boisterous singing of his young companions, Mokuwa-ka alone stood with hands tucked into his sleeves as if cold, the spool still lodged in his pocket. To this chant he restlessly rubbed his collar, shook his head, and nodded approvingly at his own kite—dancing as though striking the air—as though demonstrating comprehension.

…Yet despite the crows clamoring at that bewitching hour—with no sudden gust sweeping down—Mokuwa-ka’s low-flying kite whirled its spool skyward from his breast, string creaking taut before veering sharply toward the first star.

“A demon’s come!”

“The Tengu took it!”

With a collective gasp, amidst scattering children like windblown leaves, Mokuwa-ka turned shadow-dark as a rolling acorn and chased the kite’s phantom endlessly—vanishing from that moment without trace.

On the fifth dusk at that same hour, clutching a kite reduced to bare bones, he stood vacant-eyed by the torii once more.
They said a Tengu had snatched him away.

From then on, it became customary for him to periodically disappear from the human world—sometimes three days, sometimes five, at times up to half a month; once a month or twice every three months. And when that pitiable mother of his had undergone her own such episode long ago, Mokuwa-ka too had not been present in town.

“Where had you gone?”

Mokuwa-ka answered the town elder’s inquiry.

“To my hometown, I suppose.”

And that is what he said.
From this town—across a single great river in between—there must lie a place where mountain ranges part from peak to peak, for he claimed demons dwelled there.

“Where is your honorable hometown?”
“What manner of people reside there?”

“My hometown, eh? Heh.”

With a *pop* like a stopper being pulled free, he gave that signature cough of his—and in that same instant, his nose sharpened, his eyebrows arched taut, the wrinkles on his brow constricting inward as though being strangled while his eyes gleamed.
...His teeth chattered; his tongue turned slick and crimson as his eloquence surged forth—sharp words divulging uncanny tidings of the demon realm. Those who heard this, be they parents or grandparents, never spoke of it to their children or grandchildren.

There were times when young ones impudently confronted him directly.

“Hey Moku, where’s your hometown?”

“My hometown, eh? Heh.”

Ah—that cough alone chilled like a physician’s soft hand seizing a pulse point—yet instantly his nose sharpened, eyebrows arched taut, forehead wrinkles squirming as eyes blazed bloodshot…

Far from listening, the child recoiled and fled with a yelp.

“My hometown…”

From behind, he loomed over them, appearing to the child’s eyes like a small mountain giving chase.

“I’m sorry.”

“Kyah!”

At that very moment, Mokuwa-ka’s ears are said to twitch—a lie!

III

Even if one were to piously cast nets into seas or lakes and retrieve glimmering treasures from the waters—Buddhist statues or famed blades—before they could be sold, what became of that day’s wages? With rice priced at three sho per ryō, society could scarcely endure someone like Mokuwa-ka merely subsisting in a watchman’s hut while contributing nothing.

As for expenses—shared collectively by the whole town—for one who was half-idiot (even if, when speaking of “hometown,” demonic souls might interchange) and half-mad: what precautions were taken for the crucial fire source? …Charcoal balls, buried embers, firewood, kindling—even if burned without raising smoke—this was a matter of utmost importance.

Conveniently enough, since the severed kite incident when Mokuwa-ka acquired his hometown in the mountains, he had never once eaten cooked food.
He mostly subsisted on fruit.
If he chewed pine needles, he’d even stuff his cheeks with chinquapin leaves.
Melon rinds and watermelon seeds posed no problem.
Peaches, chestnuts, persimmons—he devoured them all with gusto. Crows and black kites he tore apart noisily for sashimi; snails and slugs he prepared as raw slices.
In spring—young grasses, shepherd’s purse, cogon grass flowers, cicada-based ascetic fare… he gnawed on turnips.
Burdock and carrots he gnawed lengthwise.

Now, in autumn once again, Mokuwa-ka—that consummate gourmet—during this season of nuts and harvest, would scatter hometown souvenirs—pheasants, copper pheasants, little sparrows, tits, varied tits—their multicolored feathers haphazardly at crossroads and beneath eaves.
However, when it came to fish, he never ate even goldfish or medaka.

What he excelled at most was yet another mushroom—nameless, dreadful fungi from his hometown’s peaks and valleys, lush and unnamed—spilling from sleeves and collars like overturned bean-paste buns bursting their dough wrappers. Even the nobleman, who deigned to grow weary of mountain delicacies, dripped dew-like drool for these alone,

“Beef fillet—nay, more than human maidens—softly dripping with unguent… Sweetness incarnate!”

It was terrifying.

Yet people said this strangeness in Mokuwa-ka must stem from his indulgence in fungi—for still more uncanny was how under southern sunlight his shadow blurred faintly, while in shadowy places the stripes of his sullied, viscous garments became discernible. […] To elaborate: by day he resembled shadow silhouettes; by night, he was clear.

Now, as for the mountain ash berries and wild grapes arranged at his stall—it seemed this old shop had invested too little capital in them, likely wouldn’t turn a profit.
And so, what he strove hardest to sell—

“What the heck is this?!”

“Beautiful garments, aren’t they?”

The parishioners wore unfazed expressions—neither buying nor accepting these wares—instead spending pocket money on neighboring tree fruits, staring brazenly at the branches and vines they carried, then tilting their heads toward the open sky as if declaring *“No Bole exists in this world,”* chuckling derisively…

Their laughter—lingering in the southern sun, becoming shadows of spider webs—resembled a bird opening its beak or a cat yawning: inhuman, devoid of mirth, simply snapping open…

Thus it was that the cornus fruit and wild grape women—having spread out mats, donned sedge hats, and sat down—were somehow lured by that very blurriness, their forms too appearing faintly hazy in the color of the sun.

A pale blue sky, wispy clouds.

When human forms grew faint within such mist—strangely flickering—the phantom visions of spider-web enclosures woven from tangled threads that should have remained unseen in daylight... phantoms.

As clearly visible as if silk floss had been combed through—pale crimson butterflies, light indigo butterflies, pale butterflies, yellow butterflies; golden and silver threads, leaf-rolling moth larvae at their vanishing edge, golden tortoise beetles, flies—bluebottles, red flies.

Autumn cicadas left as mere wings; evening cicadas shrouded in their own bodies as death garments; various insect carcasses—seemingly dragged into the nest.
They gleamed with glossy hues.

Behold—in that spider’s enclosure, dewdrops like scattered mercury beads flickered and glittered…

And yet this sky was clear—
——

IV

There was a reason behind this.

In the numerous towns of the shrine's parishioners—perhaps anticipating some supernatural occurrence—that year, and only during this autumn festival, an unfamiliar merchant sold strange, unusual wares.

At the shrine entrance—standing before a new stone torii gate—he set up shop beneath a white banner. What manner of goods were sold there?

Pufferfish-skin water guns.

Around a reed axis, they wrapped speckled pufferfish skin into small pouches; when squeezed and released, the syringe mechanism sent a jet of water gushing forth.

In this land where pufferfish were abundant—a delicacy lavishly served at feasts—springtime saw every fishmonger’s shop in the city selling this strange fish, to say nothing of the fish markets.

Yet their bizarre sales method involved taking each specimen—those with yellowish fins and black spots—flipping them inside out with a plop, greasy and glistening, lining them up with their slimy white bellies upturned.

If two were merely lined up, they became severed raw women’s breasts… Moreover, where a knife had been driven cleanly into the center, a reddish-black mouth gaped open, exposing the split belly of Xishi…

From within they sucked out hundredfold entrails—long coiling things—rolled them into bundles, stacked the slimy layers, then peddled them as “white guts” and “yellow guts”… Worse yet, red-eyed old men and rag-clad louts—so-called gut-gleaners—angled their deba knives sideways to slice and sell these intestines.

Wait—compared to this, someone like my gourmet self would be a virgin’s feast.

In short, the people of the market towns all seemed to devour limbless female torsos sliced into cylindrical portions.

Those pufferfish-skin water guns.
The children competed to buy them, heedless of their hands growing rank, and whenever they spotted a gap in the pilgrim crowd—*Squirt!*

“Fireworks launch!”

“Shooting star!”

They mimicked fireworks, spraying water in vertical, horizontal, and crisscross patterns.

No—far from targeting gaps, they disparaged Mokuwa-ka and assailed his spider-web stall.

This was the pearl-like dew.

So studded with dew that colors pooled within the spider’s enclosure—behold, it became a flesh-chilling dusk.
A mountain wind swept down in one great gust.

It was now the night of bonfires.

V

The flutes and drums fell silent, leaving only the sound of the purification font’s water.
Silently, the late night deepened.
Within the shrine precincts came clack-clack from the stone steps—the high-pitched clatter of geta teeth striking three times, four times, seven times.

Looming at full height against the branches of that crape myrtle tree stood the figure of a Shinto priest—jet-black court hat, silk robe of dull gray tinged with yellow, light-blue under-robe draped over him.
The snow lanterns of the shrine hall now cast no shadows in the deepening dark night. Emerging within this gloom was a figure who bent slightly at the waist, twisting to peer into the crape myrtle’s upper branches. A fire glimmered hazily through the mist—a pale crimson glow lingering from bonfire embers that had burned out there.

By this light, the white collar and pale blue cords of his eboshi could faintly be seen—a face like tanned paper pocked with blackened smallpox scars as if dust had been scattered across it, with sharp glinting eyes, thinning hair, sparse eyebrows, and jutting cheekbones. Even without glimpsing these features, one could recognize him by the clatter of his tall geta in this rainless night heavy only with dew: Honda Setsuri, chief priest of this shrine... a divine official who wore nothing but zori or tall geta, never regular wooden clogs.

When children played in the shrine hall, even brushing past him earned only a piercing glare. He bore an imposing authority and rarely spoke. They didn’t find this fearsome—but this chief priest had an only son named Tokimaru, equally mischievous—so once during a war game where roles were assigned, Tokimaru became the horse. Thwack! Someone rode him... and he crawled along the corridor.

A thunderous roar—the sound of a drum’s skin splitting—

“You insolent wretch!”

The one who emerged from the shrine office like a tiger was Honorable Honda Setsuri.

He barked “Move!” and seized his son Tokimaru by the scruff—still in long sleeves—yanked him off the platform, dragged him roughly across the hall to the stone basin, stripped off his robes to leave him naked, then doused him with a ladle through the skylight.

“Bring salt! Bring salt!”

This was no time for salt—from a separate residence facing the crape myrtle tree came waddling a plump fair-skinned woman with a large round chignon, hips swaying side to side. Rushing frantically to halt Tokimaru’s water purification, she threw herself forward as a human shield—only to be kicked flat onto her back with a thud.

“Defilement, withdraw! —Bring salt, bring salt.”

No—the children froze stiff.

At the mere sight of that face, they shrank back…

But to speak of morality to adults was ill-suited.
The erudite and profound Honorable Seventh Rank—his eboshi amidst a mist of blossoms exuded the elegance of a Heian courtier.

“Tend properly to the fire—the embers will scatter, I tell you.”

Tilting his eboshi downward, he called out toward his residence and was emerging from beneath the tree when—

“How fares the rain... It’s clouded over a bit,” he muttered furtively, rolling up his sleeves as he gazed toward the red-and-white banners fluttering near the young pines and ancient pines.

“That great banner must not get wet… though I doubt it will rain.”

Muttering half to himself while briskly raising his baton with rolled sleeves, he gazed up at the sky where a towering flagpole—like a ship’s mast—stood beyond the stone torii gate. Clack-clack went his geta sandals as he angled toward the wooden torii—when! Nose-shaped lanterns, crimson monkey masks, a lone sweetshop—with not a dog in sight—Mokuwa-ka had brazenly set up his stall there, looming in the gloom.

The fool clapped.

“Your Excellency.”
“Moku.”

“Heeheeheeheehee.”

“What are you doing?”

“Not a single one’s sold.”

“You fool.”

In the night darkness, with a loud, dry voice that seemed to tunnel through a cavern—

“What do you sell?”

“Beautiful clothing, isn’t it?”

“What?”

When peering into the darkness, a profound stillness settled—the scent of pine grew thick.

VI

A shrine servant in a mouse-gray stone-patterned robe and black hakama could be seen crouching like a shadow beneath the crape myrtle—splash-splash—one hand gripping a bucket, the other sweeping water with a broom… and then—

What was that—bababababa—red characters scrawled in kana floated midair; a white square lantern passed through; three figures, six straw sandal-clad feet.

Gathered around a single lantern, the three figures who had slipped swiftly through the torii gate were all yamabushi. They wore white robes and white cloth head wrappings, but their masks were grotesque—a vermilion-lacquered tengu, a turquoise hannya, and a fox with a comically yellow nose. Whether demons or shape-shifting monsters—if these were possessing spirits, how could that shrine servant tending the fire remain conscious without fainting? The Hannya carried a single axe, the Tengu fitted an arrow to a half-bow with linked arrows, and the Fox wore a single long sword at the waist.

Among them, using thick rough rope to fashion something like backpack straps, it was the Tengu who carried the lit square lantern. However, this was one of the festival attractions parading through the night alongside valiant men’s lion dances and alluring women’s Gion music—a meaningless diversion of young groups called “yashikobaba.” They hung conch shells at their hips and tucked transverse flutes into their sashes, keeping time with—

Yashiko-baba, ubaba,

Uba, uba, ubaba.

“Lend me a fire.”

The fire had not yet been struck.

“Look—there’s a fire burning on that mountain.”

“Yashiko-baba, ubaba.”

“Uba, uba, ubaba.”

...they chanted—repeating only that—while nocked arrows, brandished axes, raised swords, swung their heads in full circles from chin to crown, and alternated in a slow, hypnotic dance. Upon finishing their dance, they pressed fingers to the tips of their noses and sliced the nine symbolic cuts while chanting “Rinpyōtōsha…” and other esoteric syllables. They claimed its purpose was to exorcise demons, but this nocturnal ritual—far from dispelling evil—bore an uncanny resemblance to summoning and beckoning forth all manner of ghouls and specters, rendering it a truly rare and eerily uncanny phenomenon.

However, they had arrived a bit late.
They had suddenly manifested here after passing through a tunnel-like darkness at Kuragari Slope behind the shrine—but beyond the bridge spanning the great river at the slope's base lay Emerald Canopy and Crimson Chambers Boulevard, its streets encircled by mountains like a folding screen.
Since this coincided with festival time, having paraded around those latticed eaves since dusk, they had likely been delayed here.
But then—ah—the sound of rapids arose from nowhere; rain clouds turned unnervingly black; one of the perpetual lanterns upon Tengu Pine Peak—resembling some great submerged spider—shone like a lone star from hell; and thus the three entities came to resemble possessing demons.

They came swiftly to the roadside, saw the Honorable Seventh Rank priest, and wordlessly brought their soundless straw sandals to a halt as if by some unspoken accord.

In this lantern light, the various insects trapped in the webs resembled the gauzy willow-patterned fabric of a molted cicada shell.
They shone more vividly than moths in the lamplight.

However, the grotesque yamabushi—Tengu, Hannya, and Fox—could also be seen.
But the color was especially vivid at Mokuwa-ka’s nose tip,

“Quite beautiful clothing, isn’t it?”

The place where he wriggled and spoke—even when stretched across two green bamboo poles—had the air of some dark ritual’s version of lending small-sleeved robes for Tanabata.

Honorable Seventh Rank Honda Setsuri twisted the wrinkles of his black pockmarks into a bitter smile.

“You idiot.”
“Never heard such nonsense—calling these rags clothing? What rotten post would wear this?”
“Given this extremity, I must ask—though I myself am but one parishioner—is this inquiry not also for the shrine deity’s—”

With stern formality, he set his ritual baton against his sleeve,

“Though impertinent, I must deem this your august will.”
“Who’d wear this? You idiot—spider webs!”

“Beautiful, ain’t it? A young lady’s.”

“What?”
“A beautiful young woman’s a Princess, ain’t she? That Princess is wearin’ it.”
“In the ceiling? Under the floorboards? Where could such things possibly be?”

And the Honorable Seventh Rank made a bitter face again.

Seven

Mokuwa-ka arched his lips—like old cotton wadding—upward from his straw mat.
“After sayin’ such things, Honorable Seventh Rank—would a Princess be lurkin’ in ceilings or under floorboards?”
Though he admirably resisted dismissing this as foolishness through his defiant expression—
“As if it’s plain—ain’t they in the grass…?”
This was precisely what he had uttered.

“That’s right—as if such things could exist in the grass.”
“What do you call this? What kind of insect is this?”

“Oh? Insects, you say? Honorable Seventh Rank—what a learned priest you are! The Princess is a mushroom, y’see. …Insects, you say? Ahaha, ahaha.” His teeth—untouched by cooked food—gleamed bone-white; his tongue lolled crimson.

“A mushroom, you say? …You idiot.”
“Though no one hears this, it’s beyond absurd.”
“Deem this the shrine deity’s inquiry.”
“Mushrooms as women? Through your eyes—”

“They’re called crimson mushrooms—pale pink an’ white, beautiful lovely ladies.”
“What? You don’t even know somethin’ as basic as this, I tell ya.”

The Honorable Seventh Rank swung his ritual baton as though warding off the fool’s noxious aura, swatting the tip of this wretch’s nose two or three times while—

“Hmph. So that woman of yours lies in the meadow with spider webs draped over her, eh?”

“When sleeping, they’re naked.”

“Hmm. Mushrooms, you say?”

“Even when awake, they’re naked, I tell ya.—When adornin’ themselves—they wrap this faint treasure-like beautiful garment ’round naked bodies—I tell ya. This is…”

“Hmm, heaven’s blessings are indeed vast. To mushrooms as well, [they] deign to bestow coverings, I see.”

“You’re wrong.—‘Fetch the Princess’s repast’—that’s what the handmaiden says, I tell ya.”

“What’s this ‘handmaiden’?”

“Ah, just as I thought—Crimson mushrooms with pure white skin tinged with pale pink, ain’t they? Even the same things got different ranks. In humans, it’s the same as havin’ priests and candy sellers… Honorable Seventh Rank don’t know nothin’ at all. Ahaha, matsutake mushrooms are His Excellency of Senior Seventh Rank! On brocade cushions, sittin’ upright, they’re watchin’ over the Princess, I tell ya.”

“Silence! You idiot… Idiot! …Such nonsense.”

And the Honorable Seventh Rank, glaring sidelong at the mountain ascetics all the while, displayed his authority to rebuke exaggeration—

“W-well—those garments—how now?”

“Hah!—‘Fetch the Princess’s repast’—when the handmaiden says this, from the darkness emerges a plump Nephila spider striped yellow and crimson. With both hands—‘Here!’—it offers this gold, silver, pearls and jewels woven into translucent brocade. Then what they call a red ridge snake—its scales like blazing flames—comes galloping up from the valley floor, the spider straddling its back. And lo—the spider glows, the snake glows.”

he spun his tale.
As you call them “hometown” tales—Mokuwa-ka’s eyes glowed while he chattered.
Then his black-pocked eyes blazed bright, and all six eyeballs of the Tengu, Hannya, and white fox flared crimson.

“Still not enough—‘Lanterns… lanterns,’ says a thin voice, and then they sprout from the earth, spread along great tree trunks—ground spiders, rotten wood, mountain leeches—my hometown’s festival has countless blue lanterns, rows of matching purple paper lanterns, and red festival floats draped with cockspur thorn.”

As he spoke... Even amidst the scattered leaves and night dew from wild grapes and cornus fruits that had transformed the scene, one could envision the appearance of deep mountains.

“Whenever I feel like it, I wander off to my hometown on a whim—but this time, a welcome party came from the mountains.”
“It’s about the festival.”
“The other night—dusk when rain poured down in sheets—I passed by that puddle near Yōjin Pond．There in th’ rubbish dump crouched a black thing wearin’ a round sedge hat．When ’t saw me，’t sprang up an’ started squelchin’ through th’ downpour—moon lurkin’ under th’ clouds，mind ya—an’ every so often，’twould jerk t’a halt an’ peer back at me.”
“Head-t’-toe black—couldn’ see ’ts face—but since ’t seemed t’beckon me，I trailed after．’T veered through th’ stone torii gate an’，when ’t came this way—vanished—”

“When I tried to enter my house, there it stood—under that crape myrtle tree over there…”

When the Honorable Seventh Rank turned to look in the direction that had been pointed, the shadow of the palace servant was no longer there.

The sound of the purification water ceased, and the river rapids echoed like a wintry drizzle……

VIII

“He vanished just like that, I tell ya.”
Beside the shrine fence—seems he went toward the slope—then walked off briskly behind.
When you noticed at the slope’s lower entrance—the bastard had startled you, damn beast!
From my sleeve emerged a wrinkled, wart-covered blue face and laughed.
—The mountain’s holdin’ a grand festival—it’s a welcomin’—I tell ya.
“…This fella here’s a giant mushroom—what they call a bell mushroom, I tell ya—makes a clang like a gong when ya knock it—a sutra-chantin’ old man… Then that prankster geezer goes an’ startles me—tryin’ to give his head a good thunk—but he’s already slipped away, actin’ all high-an’-mighty takin’ shelter under an oak halfway up the slope.”

When he reached the riverside, a faint moon emerged.
The great river stretched wider than usual, its mists spreading hazily like a sea.
There in mid-current floated a small boat—aboard it rode two white-clad women wearing round sedge hats like that nut-seller from earlier, gliding upstream against the flow without rowing.
They call them bottom snakes—the river serpents that carry boats across the depths.
“Need a boatman? Hah!”

With a haughty laugh,

“From the boat—a white hand beckons, you see.”
“Kuro Oyaji carried me on his back, splashing through the current to board the boat.”
“The two women—sold bound to firewood bundles, you see—escaped after being declared poisonous and cast downstream.”

If you go far upstream, that area isn’t muddy.

The mountain depths held a bright moon.
When the deep blue raging current parted white and swift, a great serpent came to greet [us]—otherwise, the boat wouldn’t have moved an inch atop it by small serpents’ power.
Bearing the hull, swimming a full circle around before raising its sickle-shaped head toward the bow—they called it a dragon-headed ship, I tell ya.
“I am a lord….”

When they reached the rocky shore, it struck Kuro Oyaji’s head with its sickle-shaped crown—(“After you!”)—then stuck out a crimson tongue, laughed, and vanished into the valley.
The mountain path teemed with them all—festival mushrooms, you see.
Monk-samas and nun-samas mingled—the nuns squelch squelch squelch squelch through soggy patches in great numbers, the monk-samas stomp stomp stomp stomp across parched earth.
“Marsh mushrooms! Tree mushrooms! Needle mushrooms! Leather mushrooms! Sheep’s belly mushrooms! White mushrooms! Ah—so many! So many!”

Tapping his knees against the mat, looking delighted, smirking—

“First-harvested mushrooms—filial little things, they don’t go night-reveling—just sit there suckin’ their thumbs, see? …Now then—the Princess’s dance’s ’bout to start.”

With that, he shook his head sideways and clapped his hands—

“The Princess isn’t alone either.”
“The handmaidens number a thousand.”
“When Nephila spiders ride snakes and come swarming in with garments in tow—they swiftly roll them out and unfurl the sleeves.”
“When their hems flutter up—breasts translucent through rubies, hips mirrored in emeralds, shoulders ablaze with diamonds.”
“Pale crimson figures, blue-shadowed eyes, eyes lovely as crystal, lips of coral beads.”
“In unison—swish—flutter—swish—they sweep sleeves azure, flick skirts violet, turn pale crimson hems aloft.”

Flutes were heard, drums sounded.
“*Hyo-ra*, *hyo-ra*, *tsu-ten ten*! *Ohyara hyuui chi-ten ten*! *Hyara-hyara to-ten ten*!”

Was it a brothel melody? The wind through pines? *Hyo-ra*, *hyo-ra*, *tsu-ten ten*!
No—it must have been the tengu’s ritual music.
Mokuwa-ka’s voice echoed across the distance, met by answering calls.

“The song—it’s Granny Yashiko’s song, you see—hyo-ra hyo-ra, tsu-ten ten!

Granny Yashiko-ba, uba-ba,

*Uba, uba, uba-ba,*

“A light—give me one...”

As they sang and were accompanied by the ritual music, these three mountain ascetics—limbs moving in practiced motions—gradually settled their hips, bent their shoulders, shook their heads, and began to dance.
Their limb movements did not resemble swords, axes, or bows and arrows in the slightest—supple and flowing.

The Honorable Seventh Rank turned his head, shook his ritual baton, and twisted his hips.

Two banners flapped and flipped, a tengu wind sending the void plummeting.

The insects within the spider’s enclosure glowed resplendently; a crystalline chime rang out—the resonance of pearls and jade.

“How much does it cost?”

The Hannya-masked mountain ascetic asked thus.
Though unsettled by the seductive luster in that voice, when the priest saw all three cast off their disguises to stand naked—revealing unblemished snow-white skin—each proved to be...women of rosy complexions and fine-textured flesh.

“It’s not money. If everyone gets naked, I’ll give one roll each.”

It was because when asked about the price, Mokuwa-ka had pointed at the spider webs and said that.

The figures of the three—naked and draped under great banners—appeared in the priest’s eyes truly like brocade studded with stars of rubies, sapphires, diamonds, pearls, and coral.

The priest, in his tall geta sandals, staggered unsteadily through the torii gate. Instead of heading to his residence, he climbed the steps and entered the worship hall.
There, beneath the lintel on the Korean-edged tatami mat’s corner where the fourteen-year-old shrine maiden in vermilion hakama sat dozing like a doll, he abruptly yanked her up, stripped off her hakama, and tore off her robes.
…This shrine maiden, having entered service only that year, apparently believed such treatment to be customary and thus offered no resistance.

The palace servant was astonished—a horse-faced, emaciated, shabby middle-aged man who had long been a mute.

“Y-you—Honorable Seventh Rank! Wh-wh-wh-what’s happening?!”

With his ritual baton, he struck the chest with a sharp crack—

“Withdraw!”

And he held up the spider web with dead insects over the shrine maiden’s head.

Setsuri-dayu—that great authority who once, while serving as magistrate at the mountain god’s shrine, had reportedly kicked midnight worshippers into valleys—now began his descent into madness.

That three geishas from the pleasure quarters had secretly practiced in those bizarre disguises unbecoming of that night was no ordinary matter.

Within ten days, a girl from the town emerged naked through the lattice in broad daylight. She wanted that jeweled brocade of Mokuwa-ka's—he who was beckoning from the gate. In the face of such extremity, even her parents couldn't restrain her—and amid their frantic pursuit of "Oh no! Oh no!"—she plunged into the bantaro.

From the city's towns, women soon came dancing in like scattering magnolia petals—countless of them.

At night, when one looked at that hut, figures resembling those before were surrounding Mokuwa-ka’s nose like a white heat haze.

April 1918 (Taisho 7)