Ancient Tales and Folk-Lore of Japan | Page 4

gave a full account of his love-affair with O Kei. From beginning to end he told it all, and as he proceeded the samurai showed signs of impatience.
'Do not joke, sir! My daughter O Kei San is not a subject for jokes and untruths. She has been as one dead for over a year--so ill that we have with difficulty forced gruel into her mouth. Moreover, she has spoken no word and shown no sign of life.'
'I am neither stating what is untrue nor joking,' said K?noj?. 'If you but send outside, you will find O Kei in the palanquin, in which I left her.'
A servant was immediately sent to see, and returned, stating that there was neither palanquin nor any one at the gate.
K?noj?, seeing that the samurai was now beginning to look perplexed and angry, drew the golden pin from his clothes, saying:
'See! if you doubt me and think I am lying, here is the pin which O Kei told me to give you!'
'Bik-ku-ri-shi-ta-!'??1 exclaimed O Kei's mother. 'How came this pin into your hands? I myself put it into Ko San's coffin just before it was closed.'
The samurai and K?noj? stared at each other, and the mother at both. Neither knew what to think, or what to say or do. Imagine the general surprise when the sick O Kei walked into the room, having risen from her bed as if she had never been ill for a moment. She was the picture of health and beauty.
'How is this?' asked the samurai, almost shouting. 'How is it, O Kei, that you have come from your sickbed dressed and with your hair done and looking as if you had never known a moment of illness?'
'I am not O Kei, but the spirit of O Ko,' was the answer. 'I was most unfortunate in dying before the return of K?noj? San, for had I lived until then I should have become quite well and been married to him. As it was, my spirit was unhappy. It took the form of my dear sister O Kei, and for a year has lived happily in her body with K?noj?. It is appeased now, and about to take its real rest.'
'There is one condition, however, K?noj?, which I must make,' said the girl, turning to him. 'You must marry my sister O Kei. If you do this my spirit will rest truly in peace, and then O Kei will become well and strong. Will you promise to marry O Kei?'
The old samurai, his wife, and K?noj? were all amazed at this. The appearance of the girl was that of O Kei; but the voice and manners were those of O Ko. Then, there was the golden hairpin as further proof. The mother knew it well. She had placed it in Ko's hair just before the tub coffin was closed. Nobody could undeceive her on that point.
'But,' said the samurai at last, 'O Ko has been dead and buried for more than a year now. That you should appear to us puzzles us all. Why should you trouble us so?'
'I have explained already,' resumed the girl. 'My spirit could not rest until it had lived with K?noj?, whom it knew to be faithful. It has done this now, and is prepared to rest. My only desire is to see K?noj? marry my sister.'
Hasunuma, his wife, and K?noj? held a consultation. They were quite prepared that O Kei should marry, and K?noj? did not object.
All things being settled, the ghost-girl held out her hand to K?noj? saying:
'This is the last time you will touch the hand of O Ko. Farewell, my dear parents! Farewell to you all! I am about to pass away.'
Then she fainted away, and seemed dead, and remained thus for half an hour; while the others, overcome with the strange and weird things which they had seen and heard, sat round her, hardly uttering a word.
At the end of half an hour the body came to life, and standing up, said:
'Dear parents, have no more fear for me. I am perfectly well again; but I have no idea how I got down from my sick-room in this costume, or how it is that I feel so well.'
Several questions were put to her; but it was quite evident that O Kei knew nothing of what had happened--nothing of the spirit of O Ko San, or of the golden hairpin!
A week later she and K?noj? were married, and the golden hairpin was given to a shrine at Shiogama, to which, until quite recently, crowds used to go and worship.
Footnotes
1:1 This story savours of 'Botan D?r?,' or Peony Lantern story, told both by Mitford and by Lafcadio Hearn. In this instance, however, the spirit of the dead sister passes into the body of the living