The Yotsuya Kwaidan | Page 5

pray take not the story of the O'Iwa Inari, the Yotsuya Kwaidan,
as a mere fairy tale or novel of the day. The shrine of the Tamiya Inari
stands now to attest the truth of the tradition. Let the doubter but
witness the faith of the believer in the powers of the fearful lady; and, if
doubt still continues to exist, the salutary fear of others at least will
inspire respect.
THE YOTSUYA KWAIDAN OR O'IWA INARI
CHAPTER I
O'MINO AND DENSUKÉ
Yotsuya is a suburb--at the extreme west of Edo-To[u]kyo[u]. Its
streets are narrow and winding, though hilly withal; especially on the
southern edge toward the Aoyama district, still devoted to cemeteries
and palaces, sepulchres whited without and within. Echizenbori would
be at the other extremity of the great city. It fronts eastward on the bank
of the Sumidagawa. The populous and now poverty stricken districts of
Honjo[u] and Fukagawa beyond the wide stream, with other qualities,
deprive it of any claim of going to extremes. In fact Echizenbori is a
very staid and solid section of Edo-To[u]kyo[u]. Its streets are narrow;
and many are the small shops to purvey for the daily needs of its
inhabitants. But these rows of shops are sandwiched in between great
clumps of stores, partly warehouses and partly residences of the owners
thereof. These stores line the canals of Echizenbori, water courses
crowded with junks carrying their ten tons, or their hundreds of tons, of
freight--precious cargoes of rice to go into these stores in bulk, of shoyu
(soy) by the hundred kegs, of sakarazumi (charcoal from Shimosa) by
the thousand tawara (bale), of fish dried and fresh, of takuan or daikon
(the huge white radish) pickled in salt and rice bran, of all the odds and
ends of material in the gross which go to make up the necessities of
living in a great city. If Echizenbori then can make its show of poverty,
and very little display of wealth, it is not one of the poor quarters of this

capital city of Nippon.
Crossing the Takabashi from Hacho[u]bori and plunging down the
narrow street opposite; a short turn to the right, a plunge down another
narrow street and a turn to the right; one comes to the high cement wall,
in its modernness of type a most unusual attachment to shrine or temple.
The gate is narrow and formal; almost like the entrance to a garden or
smaller burying ground. Within all is changed from the busy outside
world. The area inclosed is small--perhaps a square of a hundred and
fifty feet--but marked in lines by a maze of lanterns of the cheap iron
variety, set on cheap wooden posts. On the right is seen a minor shrine
or two dedicated to the Inari goddess. On the left is a small building
devoted to votive offerings, the crude and the more elaborate. The most
striking is the offering of a little geisha lady, and portrays an heroic
scene of early days. There are other portraitures, in which perhaps a
wandering lover is seen as a hero, to the lady's eyes, of these later times.
On the outside of the structure are posted up by the hundred pictures of
once woebegone ladies, now rejoicing in the potent influence of the
Tamiya shrine to restore to them the strayed affections of husband or
lover. Next in line is an open, shed-like structure. It is a poor chance if
here the casual visitor does not encounter one or two of the petitioners,
patiently trotting round in a circle from front to back, and reciting their
prayers in this accomplishment of "the hundred turns." Just opposite,
and close by, is the shrine itself. This is in part a massive store-house
set back in the domestic structure, with the shrine of the Inari facing the
visitor. The floor space at the sides and before it often is piled high
with tubs of shoyu and saké, with bundles of charcoal, such negotiable
articles as the wealthier shopkeeper can offer to the mighty lady; and
long tresses of hair of women too poor to offer anything else, or wise
enough to know that a woman could make no greater sacrifice. And is
not the object of their worship a woman? Numerous are these severed
strands. Entering the shrine and passing the pleasant spoken warden at
its entrance, peddling his charms and giving advice where often it is
sadly needed--perhaps the more valuable of his two public duties--to
the left within is the Oku-no-In, the inner shrine containing the ihai or
memorial tablet of O'Iwa. That the shrine is popular and wealthy; that
the lady is feared, venerated, and her dreadful powers much sought

after; this is plain to the eye in the crowded elaborateness of this inner
holy place of