Horrors of Europe III: Witches and Sorcerers

Hello and welcome to The Obscuritan. We apologise for the slight lateness of this month’s last article (it being the 2^nd of August), and in order to get a fresh start and add a little spice to the proceedings, we are serving up a hot batch of original sources on Witchcraft and Sorcery. As previously stated, we shall most likely devote a month to each of this month's topics so as to cover them more thoroughly.

Enjoy!

The Norse

“The belief in sorcery (fjölkyngi, gorningar) was universal among the heathen northmen, and it had its origin in the doctrine itself, which represents the magic arts as an invention of the Asa-Gods. They made a distinction between two kinds of magic, viz., galldr and seiðr. The name galldr may be derived from gala, to sing, and thus denoted a kind of sorcery that was performed by magic songs (gala or kveða galldra). Its origin and dissemination was attributed to the Æsir, and especially to Odin, who therefore was also called galldrs föður—the father of magic incantations. The men who cultivated this art were called galldra-smiðir or galldra-menn. The Runes occupied in this kind of sorcery an important place as magic characters, and it appears that the magician, while singing his incantations, mostly marked or scored certain runic characters corresponding to the effects which were desired from his sorcery. Often the magic songs or incantations themselves were called runes (rúnar). It was believed that by such incantations they could protect themselves against arms, undo chains, heal wounds and cure diseases, extinguish fire and settle storms, gain woman's love and wake up the dead in order to learn of them the future.” (Keyser, the religion of the northmen, p263-4)

Runic charms

The Hávamál, a section from the Poetic Edda written from the perspective of the god Odin, details the many rúnar he knows:

145. Those songs I know, which nor sons of men, nor queen in a king's court knows; the first is Help which will bring thee help in all woes and in sorrow and strife.

146. A second I know, which the son of men must sing, who would heal the sick.

147. A third I know: if sore need should come of a spell to stay my foes; when I sing that song, which shall blunt their swords, nor their weapons nor staves can wound.

148. A fourth I know: if men make fast in chains the joints of my limbs, when I sing that song which shall set me free, spring the fetters from hands and feet.

149. A fifth I know: when I see, by foes shot, speeding a shaft through the host, flies it never so strongly I still can stay it, if I get but a glimpse of its flight.

150. A sixth I know: when some thane would harm me in runes on a moist tree's root, on his head alone shall light the ills of the curse that he called upon mine.

151. A seventh I know: if I see a hall high o'er the bench-mates blazing, flame it ne'er so fiercely I still can save it, -- I know how to sing that song.

152. An eighth I know: which all can sing for their weal if they learn it well; where hate shall wax 'mid the warrior sons, I can calm it soon with that song.

153. A ninth I know: when need befalls me to save my vessel afloat, I hush the wind on the stormy wave, and soothe all the sea to rest.

154. A tenth I know: when at night the witches ride and sport in the air, such spells I weave that they wander home out of skins and wits bewildered.

155. An eleventh I know: if haply I lead my old comrades out to war, I sing 'neath the shields, and they fare forth mightily safe into battle, safe out of battle, and safe return from the strife.

156. A twelfth I know: if I see in a tree a corpse from a halter hanging, such spells I write, and paint in runes, that the being descends and speaks.

157. A thirteenth I know: if the new-born son of a warrior I sprinkle with water, that youth will not fail when he fares to war, never slain shall he bow before sword.

158. A fourteenth I know: if I needs must number the Powers to the people of men, I know all the nature of gods and of elves which none can know untaught.

159. A fifteenth I know, which Folk-stirrer sang, the dwarf, at the gates of Dawn; he sang strength to the gods, and skill to the elves, and wisdom to Odin who utters.

160. A sixteenth I know: when all sweetness and love I would win from some artful wench, her heart I turn, and the whole mind change of that fair-armed lady I love.

161. A seventeenth I know: so that e'en the shy maiden is slow to shun my love.

162. These songs, Stray-Singer, which man's son knows not, long shalt thou lack in life, though thy weal if thou win'st them, thy boon if thou obey'st them thy good if haply thou gain'st them.

163. An eighteenth I know: which I ne'er shall tell to maiden or wife of man save alone to my sister, or haply to her who folds me fast in her arms; most safe are secrets known to but one- the songs are sung to an end.

The Nidstang Curse Pole

And when all was ready for sailing, Egil went up into the island. He took in his hand a hazel-pole, and went to a rocky eminence that looked inward to the mainland. Then he took a horse's head and fixed it on the pole. After that, in solemn form of curse, he thus spake: 'Here set I up a curse-pole, and this curse I turn on king Eric and queen Gunnhilda. (Here he turned the horse's head landwards.) This curse I turn also on the guardian-spirits who dwell in this land, that they may all wander astray, nor reach or find their home till they have driven out of the land king Eric and Gunnhilda.' This spoken, he planted the pole down in a rift of the rock, and let it stand there. The horse's head he turned inwards to the mainland; but on the pole he cut runes, expressing the whole form of curse. (Egil’s Saga Ch. LX).

As to why Egil had grudge against the Queen:

“Queen Gunhilda wished to do harm to Egil at a banquet, and for this purpose caused poisoned ale to be offered to him. But Egil, who was suspicious of the drink, scored runes upon the horn, then pricked the inside of his hand with his knife and marked the runes with blood, whereupon the horn burst and the drink fell on the floor” (Keyser p265).

Other forms of Norse magic, again from Keyser, are as follows:

Magic-skilled women used sometimes to pass their hands over the bodies of persons going to battle, in order to discover by this means what place upon them was most liable to be wounded. It was believed that they could feel a protuberance in every such place, and then a special protective remedy was applied to the spot. If no such protuberance was perceived, it was thouglit, accordingly, that no danger was to be apprehended.

By means of these enchantments called seið, it was believed that the sorcerer could call up storms and all manner of injuries, transform himself into the likeness of animals, and enable himself to foretell coming events. This art appears to have been mostly employed for doing injury, and was considered a far more ignoble art than the incantations (galldr). Its origin was ascribed to the Goddess Freyja, and it appears to have been mostly practiced by women, who were called witches (seiðkona, plur. seiðkonur). The great abhorrence which many, even in heathen times, had for this kind of sorcery, is seen in King Harald Hárfagri's proceedings against his own son Ragnvald Rettilbein, whom he put to death because he meddled with this kind of witchcraft.

A peculiar kind of sorcery was the so-called sitting-out (útiseta, at sitja uti), in which the magician sat out at night under the open sky, and by certain magic performances now no longer known, perhaps most frequently by incantations (galldur), was believed to call up evil spirits (vekja upp troll) or awaken the dead in order to consult them. It was especially to inquire into the future that this kind of sorcery was resorted to.

Jugglery (sjonhverfingar, from sjon, sights and hverfa, to turn) was performed by blinding the eyes of the people with magic arts, so that certain objects appeared to them totally different from what they really were. This kind of sorcery is often spoken of in the ancient Sagas as being employed by magicians when they wished to conceal any person from hostile pursuit, or to frighten his enemies.

Intimately connected with the above, was the power, often mentioned in the Sagas, of becoming invisible, through which the magician by his arts could make himself or any one else that he chose become totally invisible. He was then said to "make a hiding-helmet" (gera huliðs-hjálm) for himself or others. This kind of invisibility is sometimes described as being produced by a sort of dust, of the appearance of ashes, which the magician scattered over and about those whom he wished to conceal.

Also common in the sagas was the summoning of the dead who, if you remember the Draugr, seldom slept easy in their barrows in any case. The lay of Svipdagr, another text contained in the Poetic Edda begins with Svipdag summoning the ghost of his mother to question her:

Svipdag spake:
1. "Wake thee, Groa! | wake, mother good!
At the doors of the dead I call thee;
Thy son, bethink thee, | thou badst to seek
Thy help at the hill of death."

Groa spake:
2. "What evil vexes | mine only son,
What baleful fate hast thou found,
That thou callest thy mother, | who lies in the mould,
And the world of the living has left?"

Shtriga

“Albania swarms with devils and spirits (Ore), magicians and witches (Shtriga). Women in Albania are all born wicked. In some districts probably quite half the women have dealings with the devil. But it is very hard to detect them; Shtrigas can work many wonders, bewitch a man so that he withers and dies, or suffers aches and pains. A Shtriga can make herself quite small like a bee, and get into a house through the keyhole or under the door at night and suck a person's blood so that he fades and dies in time. The best safeguard is hard to get. A Shtriga always vomits the blood she has sucked. You must secretly track a woman you suspect to be a Shtriga when she goes out to vomit the blood. You must scrape some of it up on a silver coin and wear it, and then no Shtriga can harm you. Nothing is too marvellous for a tribesman to believe. Here is a good example, which the teller, a man from Djakova, believes most firmly. A young married woman who was pregnant craved for wine, but the family was too poor to buy any. Her mother-in-law, who was a Shtriga, stripped the young wife quite naked and anointed her all over with a salve which she made, at the same time saying certain magic words. The young wife at once shrank to the size of a bee. “Go, my daughter" said the Shtriga, "to the cellar of old so-and-so, crawl in at the keyhole and drink all you want. But take care not to say the name of God". Off went the young wife to the cellar, entered and drank her fill. She then felt so much better that she cried "Thank God!" At once she became her natural size. "Oh what a dreadful position for a virtuous married woman," cried my informant with deep feeling, "to be in a strange cellar with nothing on at all!" There she had to stay till the owner of the cellar opened it next day. He was much surprised to find her, but as he was a very kind man, he lent her a coat to go home in and never doubted her explanation. And the Djakovan who told the tale knew the woman, knew the owner of the cellar, and had seen the keyhole. What more proof can you require? Moreover, as he remarked, how else can you explain the occurrence?” (Durham, High Albania and its Customs in 1908, 463-4)

The Enchanted Shoemaker of Constantinople

During our research into the Vampires of eastern Europe, we came across this account of Necromancy which bears quoting at length, about a young shoemaker during the reign of Pope Sylvester II. From Summers’ The Vampire in Europe pp94-7:

“This young shoemaker excelled both in art and in industry even the masters of his craft, and not only was he able to do more in one day than all the others could perform in two, but the results of his haste were infinitely to be preferred to the results of their study and care. […] gold in abundance poured to his coffers, and as he was both a stalwart fellow and handsome, for there was nobody who could excel him in all the exercises of the arena, in wrestling and every kind of sport, he was everywhere applauded as a champion. Now it so happened that one day there came to his window a very lovely maiden accompanied by a large retinue, and she, showing him her naked foot, desired him to fit her with a pair of shoes. [Entranced with her beauty], he abandoned his house, he sold his goods and chattels, yea, even his patrimony, and he became a soldier so that by the following of arms he might arise from his lowly condition to the rank of noble, and when he sought the lady’s hand, if repulsed, he would be at any rate refused in more courteous phrase. Before he could dare to unfold his love to his mistress he was determined to make a name for himself in the field, and indeed through his strength and valour he soon won that eminence among the chivalry of knights that he had erstwhile held among the cobblers of the city. Accordingly he sought the alliance for which he yearned, and though in truth he deemed himself full worthy he did not win from her father the lady of his longing. He now blazed fort into the greatest fury, and he desired nothing so much as to carry off by force the bride who was refused to him on account of his lowly birth and poor estate. He joined the ranks of a mighty squadron of pirates, and so he prepared to revenge by sea the repulse he had received on land. Before long he rose to be their general, and he was verily feared both by land and sea, for success always attended him. Whilst he was engaged on one of those bloody forays and laying low every obstacle in his path, news reached him that his lady was dead. With bitter tears he at once concluded a truce and hastened to be present at the solemnity of her obsequies. Having assisted at the funeral, he carefully noted the place where she was buried, and upon the next night, resorting thither all alone, he exhumed the dead woman and lay with her, knowing her just as if she were alive in his embraces. When this dreadful fornication was over and he rose from the corpse he heard a voice bidding him return at the time when she could bring forth, and bear away with him what he had begotten. After the fitting interval he came back, dug up the grave and received from the dead woman a human head with the warning that he must not allow anybody to see it except those of his enemies whom he wished to destroy. When he had carefully wrapped this up he placed it deep in a box, and having complete confidence in his power he gave up fighting at sea, and determined to do battle on the land. To whatsoever cities or towns he laid siege he displayed this terrible sight of the gorgon, whereupon the miserable victim turned to stone since they beheld a horror as loathly as that of medusa herself. He was feared by all, and recognized by all as their lord and master, for men trembled lest he should cause them to perish suddenly. Nobody, indeed, understood the cause of this foul plague and instant death. In one and the same moment they saw and they expired without a word, without a groan; on the battlements armed men passed away without receiving any wound. Fortified places, cities, whole provinces yielded to him, nobody dared resist, but yet everyone was sorely grieved at falling so easily a victim to so cheap a triumph. Many men thought him to be a sorcerer, some declared that he was a god, but whatsoever he sought, he never met with refusal.”

Eventually, the shoemaker meets his end when, having subjugated the king of Constantinople and thus winning his daughter as a wife, he eventually reveals to her the secret of the head. That night she unwraps the head and holds it over the shoemaker’s face so that, upon waking, he sees it and is slain.

“then the princess gave orders that this medusa horror should be carried out of the country and thrown into the midst of the Grecian sea, together with the father of this abominable foetus who should share in its utter destruction. Those who were charged with this business hastened forth in a galley, and when they had reached the midst of the ocean they cast the two loathsome creatures into the depths. As the monsters disappeared beneath the waves the sea thrice boiled and bubbled, casting up its sandy floor, as if the ocean had been wrenched and rent to its very depths and the waters suddenly leaped back, shrinking from the wrath of the most high, and just as if the sea, sick with loathing, was trying to reject what the sick land, recovering from this abominable birth, vomited into the deep.” Eventually the receding waters crashed back into a whirlpool.

According to one source (cached here with the relevant passage highlighted) the “shoemaker” was in fact none other than Huugh de Paganis, one of the co-founders of the Knights Templar (who, one might care to note, were eventually burned en masse as heretics for crimes including the worship of a “mysterious head”), but since the source’s main goal is to prove that “the Kennedy Assassination had to do with Masonic Sorcery”, a fact “which is well known to certain news agencies who have chosen to suppress it”, we here at The Obscuritan would not place too great a credence upon it.

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Japanese Creatures IV: Yurei

Hello and welcome to The Obscuritan. For the last (for now) in our Japanese Creatures articles, we’re departing from the previous format and discussing one creature in particular – the Yurei or ghosts – and the various forms in which they appear.

Ghosts (霊 – Rei) in Japan come under a variety of names. The most common is Yurei (faint spirits), although Borei (ruined spirits) and Shinryo (dead spirits) are occasionally used. In some popular culture, Ayakashi is also sometimes used, although this is technically only used for those who have drowned at sea. The process of becoming a ghost was, to the Japanese, similar to the one most people who believe would subscribe to, in that it arises from complications in “passing on”. Japan, like many Asian countries, maintains a strong belief in Ancestor Spirits, the ghosts of departed family members and historical clan members, some of whom over time may be promoted to the status of minor deities, particularly if they were the clan founders. Furthermore, the spiritual dimension of the afterlife was distinct from that occupied by gods and spirits, which overlapped closely with the material realm. This then necessitated a “crossing over” that the spirit (Reikon) must achieve in order to depart the mortal realm, a process aided by the prayers and offerings of incense given at funerals. However extreme emotion, usually of anger, hate and so forth, though sometimes of simply things like envy or grief, can cause either the person’s spirit itself or a part of it to remain behind, either seeking vengeance for its being wronged (assuming it can even remember the life it had) or simply expressing its fury and grief to anyone who crosses its path. Some are simply a “loop” of such anger that lashes out at bystanders, and as such are extremely dangerous. In some cases, too, the spirit of a living person can enter this state as an Ikiryo, similar to Astral Projection, as the result of great rage or hate, in order to deliver a curse to the object of their feelings.

As one might expect from a feudal (and therefore patriarchal) civilization where hardship was a common factor of the majority of the population’s lives, women faced a hard life and thus many of the more popular archetypal Yurei have been of women wronged by husbands, lords or just the simple facts of life. This is so prevalent that many associate the term Yurei exclusively with such female spirits (perhaps due to its similarity to the feminine name Yuri or Lily). Below we have illustrated some of the most well-known of these wronged women and their origins.

Oyuki

Famously illustrated in the painting “The Ghost of Oyuki” by Maruyama Okyo, Oyuki was the ghost of his mistress in one of the Geisha (escort) houses who died young, but appeared to her deeply grieving lover in a dream, thus inspiring the portrait. Although not illustrating the depth of emotion on her part that characterized many Yurei before and after, she is notable for having inspired many of the features of the Yurei, particularly from the Edo period onwards, which would become hallmarks of ghostly apparitions – long dark hair, a frail body hidden under long white robes (white being the Japanese funereal colour rather than black) even when frailty was not one of their living characteristics, and the tapering off of their bodies at the legs which, particularly when such characters appear in Kabuki theatre, is often the first confirmation that the character is a ghost (alongside, in the theatre, their makeup).

The Nightly Weeping Rock

This tale takes place on the Tokaido highway, a road stretching from Kyoto to Edo (now Tokyo). Travelling upon this road one night on her way to see her husband, a pregnant woman is ambushed and murdered by a brigand. After she does not arrive her husband, chancing upon the site of the murder, is confronted by the ghost of his wife, which was ensorcelled into the rock when her blood splashed upon it. The ghost then hands their child to her husband alive and well, as the Bodhisattva Kannon had taken the child into her care after the murder.

Okiku

This tale concerns the local baron Tessan, who owned ten porcelain plates given by a Dutch merchant, and his beautiful maid Okiku. Many times he tried to seduce her, only to be rebuffed. Finally, Tessan hid one of the ten plates, and demanded that Okiku bring out all ten plated for him to use. She counted them time and time again, but could not find the last plate, and either (according to the teller) was thrown down the well by Tessan or jumped in herself. However, Tessan was plagued for many months afterwards by the spectre of Okiku rising up from the well, counting mournfully to nine, before breaking down into sobs, sometimes as many times a night as the times she counted the plates before her death.

Oiwa

This story takes place as part of the famous play Yotsuya Kaidan, by Tsuruya Nanboku IV, and concerns perhaps the most destructive and well-known Yurei of all. This story begins with the young couple of Oiwa and her husband Iyemon. Iyemon was a samurai, but due to his wife’s frailty, was forced to become an umbrella-maker to support them, a fact which led him to hate and resent his unknowing wife. The daughter of a rich local family also loved Iyemon, and her parents were eager to see her married to a man who, once no longer forced to perform menial

work, could regain his status as a Samurai. They finally made their move by providing Iyemon poison in the guise of medicine, to give to Oiwa. However, the medicine failed to kill her, instead horribly disfiguring her. In her last moments, Oiwa realized Iyemon’s deceit and cursed him with the same level of hate that he felt for her, the fury of which finally killed her. Not wishing to bear the shame and eager to be wedded soon, Iyemon simply dumped Oiwa’s body in the river, along with a servant who saw him do it, and the wedding took place a few days later. When Iyemon lifted his new bride’s veil, however, he was confronted by the leering, disfigured face of Oiwa, and struck out at her with his sword and killing the girl. Fleeing the wedding, he ran to confess to the girl’s parents, but was accosted in the road by Oiwa and the servant. Slaying them again, he found the bodies of his mother- and father-in-law at his feet. In once infamous scene Iyemon, having fled, tries to take solace in the wilderness by fishing, only to dredge up the bodies of his first two victims, miles away from the river where he dumped them. Finally, he flees to an abandoned shack on Snake Mountain, where the ghost of Oiwa finally comes to him through a leering, burnt-out lamp (as seen in the picture), as the very vines of the mountain itself writhe and come alive around him…

Two things are of particular interest in the case of Oiwa. Firstly, although she is horrific in appearance, and leads to the death of many people, Oiwa is not at heart a malevolent ghost, and those that die are merely the corrupt people who conspired with Iyemon to kill her. Secondly, to some in the audience, it is perhaps debatable whether Oiwa is indeed a ghost at all – an equally compelling explanation is that these apparitions are merely the unravelling of Iyemon’s sanity after killing the woman he once loved.

The Ghosts of Matahachi and Kikuno

In many stories, particularly those adapted for Kabuki theatre, the suicide of two lovers – each damning the other with their love – is represented by the two spirits, bound together by a length of cloth or rope, haunting future couples whose love is similar to their own. An interesting reversal of this, however, is the story of Matahachi and Kikuno, who instead found the younger brother of the man whom Matahachi served and Kikuno was the concubine of, having an affair with his deceased brother’s widow, who was now a nun. The younger brother kills them before they can tell anyone, but that night the two illicit lovers are interrupted in their bedchamber by the bloodied ghosts of the murdered pair who appear between them.

Yuki-onna

This spirit, unlike the ones we have looked at so far, is more of an apparition, and a predatory one at that, than a Yurei as such. Lurking in the mountains during the dead of winter, this spirit is sometimes depicted as a long-lost victim of freezing, and upon encountering a wanderer, she will open her arms and offer them a warm embrace. Though she is usually quite beautiful, accepting her embrace allows her to draw the life out of the traveller, leaving them a frozen corpse. Although feared by early winter travellers, modern depictions of the Yuki Onna have been more favourable, most likely stemming from the account of her given in Lafcadio Hearn’s Kwaidan (him again) of her sparing a man from his fate after having fallen in love with him.

A similar creature, the Yama-Uba (mountain hag) is often confused with the Yuki Onna, both living in the mountains and preying on humans. However, the Yama-Uba is more akin to the Yokai, and exhibits many forms which include features resembling Bakemono such as the Futakuchi-onna and the Hari-Onago, as well as the defining feature of the

Kuchisake Onna

Another departure from the standard Yurei archetype, this spirit has taken on a life of its own as a wildly popular Urban Legend amongst school-age Japanese teens. The form it takes in the modern day is as follows: A man (usually) is wandering through the streets at night on his way home from either the office or a bar, when he spots a woman approaching in the opposite direction. It is very late, and in concern he pauses. She is quite attractive from what he can see, even though she is wearing a white surgical mask over her face, common in Japan for people suffering from a cold. She looks up and asks him; “Do you think I’m pretty?” The man, seeing no reason not to play along, replies “Yes”. At this point, the woman quickly rips down her mask, revealing a horrifically wide mouth, seemingly slashed open from ear to ear yet nonetheless bristling with teeth, through which she asks “…How about now?” The victim has no time to reply, however, as she invariably flicks out a switchblade and slashes their throat.

Being a popular tale, though this story is thought to have began as the tale of a Samurai’s jilted lover, it has spread to just about every city in modern Japan, and from each locale (and indeed each teller), the manner of warding her off varies, from offering it hard candies to muttering the word garlic under one’s breath while drawing the Kanji for “Dog” on one’s palm.

Funa Yurei

We have already noted the Ayakashi being the souls of the drowned. However, another group of spirits of drowned sailors are just as well-known, and far more feared. The Funa-Yurei are a troupe of sailors which sail alongside a boat during a storm, and ask the sailors for a ladle. Failure to provide one would cause the ghosts to sink the ship in anger, but providing one would mean they would begin ladling water into the boat instead of out, sinking it as well. Canny captains, however, would keep on board a ladle with no bottom, meaning the ghosts could ladle all they wanted, without sinking their ship.

Ao-Andon

During the long summer twilight in the Edo period, many groups of people would play the game Hyaku Monogatari, or 100 ghost stories. Sat in a room with 100 candles, each person in the circle would tell a ghost story and blow out one candle. When the last one went out, a leering apparition would loom out from the blue andon lamps the candles were placed in – the Ao-Andon.

Aokigahara

Worth mentioning at this point is this small forest at the base of Mt Fuji, which has developed a reputation for both its beautiful scenery and abnormally high number of suicides – some 30 a year, and more than 500 in the past 50 years, making it the most ‘popular’ suicide spot after the Golden Gate bridge in San Fransisco. While the choice to die in such a beautiful place is perhaps a deciding factor for some, it may also have something to do with its appearance in the books The complete manual of Suicide, written in 1993 by Wataru Tsurumi, discussing the issue of suicide in Japan (rather than being some grisly how-to) and mentions Aokigahara as a hot-spot, and Kuroi Jukai by Seito Matsumoto, in which the protagonists finally commit suicide in the forest. This high instance has apparently had an effect upon the area, with spiritualists reporting a deep-seated malevolence in the very trees themselves (perhaps similar in nature to the Jubokko tree we discussed alongside the Bakemono), perhaps the reason why compasses have been claimed to go haywire inside the forest, although military-grade ones have been shown to work. Teams of searchers now patrol annually in the forest looking for any such victims, and are often alerted to any potential suicides by the practice, which has somehow gained prominence in Japan, of taking one’s shoes off and leaving them behind when one commits suicide, as one would when entering a house. The bodies themselves are housed in the Park-keeper’s lodge, where a person must stay with the body overnight for fear of its soul screaming all night and causing the body to get up and move about.

Exorcisms

As we have discussed, many of these spirits pose an active threat to the living, due to the sometimes irrational nature of their complaints, and all of these spirits, malevolent or no, were seen as objects of pity that lived tortured existences separate from the love of either dimension. But how then did one go about redressing the issue? In cases where the death was recent, the spirit may simply be pacified by allowing it some measure of closure; in popular stories, relatives of the deceased would find and punish (usually kill) the wrongdoers, or find their remains and bury them. In hauntings motivated by love, merely a chance to ensure that their feelings are heard is enough to allow the Yurei to find peace. The spirit does not always receive the closure it seeks, however. Okiku’s haunting, for example, was ended when a neighbour of Tessan’s agrees to exorcise her, and does so by hiding in the bushes until she begins her counting, and cutting her off at the end by yelling “TEN!”, at which point she shrieked and vanished, with no mention ever made of whether Tessan was punished for his actions. Given his status as a baron, however, it seems unlikely.

Sometimes indeed this is altogether impossible, as the passage of time has erased any possibility of finding the culprit – suspects and witnesses die, evidence is destroyed and so on. In other cases, there are spirits who have continued to haunt even after gaining some degree of vengeance. Oiwa, for example, is sometimes depicted to have remained on the mortal plane after aiding in the demise of Iyemon, her anger not having subsided (though this may just be an addition by later storytellers hoping to add a little more shock to their retelling). This may be as a result of the “loop” we mentioned earlier; what remains behind is not necessarily the individual, but a manifestation of their anger as an entity all of its own, whether or not it bears their name. In cases such as these, an exorcism may be required, for which there are four distinct schools of practitioners. The Kitoshi, a certain caste of Shinto priest (Kannushi) dedicated to healing practices were adept at exorcising, utilizing the Shinto rituals of purity and natural order to placate the spirit and restore harmony. A similar goal was the aim of the Buddhist monk (Bonze), who would recite mantras and prayers to the Buddha and other saints, or reciting passages of the sutras, in order to calm both the possessor and possessed. Two other schools of practitioners were more esoteric in nature, but seen as even more effective if the former two failed. The Onmyoji, practitioners of ancient Chinese customs, performed similar rites to the Kannushi, but combined with Taoist geomancy and other formulae. The Buddhist equivalent was the Yamabushi (whom we mentioned as being connected to the Tengu mountain Yokai), who would combine similar Chinese practices with the Buddhist approach. Often these placations would involve the use of Ofuda, strips of hemp cloth with the name of a deity or saint or excerpt from a sutra upon it, which was either used to keep the Yurei out, or attatched to its forehead to forcibly dispel it. In the most severe cases, shrines had to be built and prayers offered, much like a minor Kami or particularly powerful Yokai/Henge.

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