Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 5.djvu/226

 tlement. Such incidents, however, had not in their origin any legitimate connection with superstition.

Since the English word "nightmare" indicates that the subjective character of that natural disturbance was not recognised when the Anglo-Saxon language came into existence, the student is prepared to find a corresponding superstition among the Japanese. They used to believe, and the lower orders do still believe, that a rat possesses some demoniacal power which it exercises maliciously during the night. But nobody concerns himself much about the question. Half a page of history, however, is devoted to the account of an imperial nightmare, the work of a very strange monster. The Emperor Shirakawa II. (1153 A. D.) was the victim of the visitation. Every night he fell into convulsions, and neither medicine nor prayer gave him relief. It was observed that at the moment of his seizure a dark cloud emerged from a forest eastward of the Palace and settled over the roof of His Majesty's chamber. The court, in conclave, decided that a warrior's weapon was needed, and invited the renowned Yorimasa to undertake the task. That night, as the cloud floated to its place and the Emperor's paroxysm overtook him, Yorimasa, with a prayer to the god of war on his lips, shot an arrow into the heart of the cloud. There fell to the ground a monster with the head of an ape, the body of a serpent, the legs of a