Japanese Ghost Stories by Lafcadio Hearn

Kanô Jigorô, the president of the school of that time, spread judo to the world. In 1891, he moved to Kumamoto and taught at the fifth high school for three years. In Matsué, he got acquainted with Nishida Sentarô, a colleague teacher and his lifelong friend, and married Koizumi Setsu, a daughter of a samurai. He afterward moved to Matsué as an English teacher of Shimané prefectural middle school. He arrived in Yokohama, but because of a dissatisfaction with the contract, he quickly quit the job. After making remarkable works in America as a journalist, he went to Japan in 1890 as a journey report writer of a magazine. Rosa Cassimati (Ρόζα Αντωνίου Κασιμάτη in Greek), a Greek woman, bore Patrick Lafcadio Hearn (Πατρίκιος Λευκάδιος Χερν in Greek or 小泉八雲 in Japanese), a son, to Charles Hearn, an army doctor from Ireland. Greek-born American writer Lafcadio Hearn spent 15 years in Japan people note his collections of stories and essays, including Kokoro (1896), under pen name Koizumi Yakumo. In Hearn's vivid retellings of classic Japanese folk tales-the spirit world swirls frighteningly close to human reality, the border between the two often being no more than a thin fog of dreams.

Strange and wondrous creatures abound in these tales, including human-faced Heiké crabs who embody the spirits of dead warriors, and the jikininki, or man-eating goblins, that feed nocturnally on funeral offerings. The twenty 'ghostly sketches' Hearn gathered for his classic collection, Kwaidan (or 'strange stories'), span the supernatural spectrum from grisly accounts of revenge from beyond the grave to haunting visions of beautiful snow spirits who bring quiet death in the night. These are just some of the haunting tales culled by distinguished American scholar, translator, and journalist Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904) during years of travel and study in his adopted land of Japan. *A samurai turned priest does battle with the floating severed heads of ravenous goblins. *A woman on her deathbed coerces a promise from her betrothed to wait for her reincarnated return, no matter how many years it will take. *A man terrified of the ghost who haunts his nights seeks help from a priest, who inscribes his body with protective holy texts.

Japanese Ghost Stories by Lafcadio Hearn