Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 5.djvu/250

 mountains, it grows as it goes, sometimes swelling to a brilliant sphere, three feet in diameter, sometimes not developing to more than a third of that size, but always when it rises to the height of a man's stature above the ground, showing within its glow two faces, to which gradually the torsos of two naked wrestlers, struggling furiously, attach themselves. It takes its way slowly and harmlessly to the recesses of the hills, but resents, with superhuman force, any attempt to interrupt its progress. Once a wrestler of unconquered fame waited at midnight for its coming, and sprang to grasp it as it passed through the mists. He was hurled to a distance of ten or twelve yards, and barely escaped with his life.

Of the "badger-blaze" it is related that it wanders in the Kawabe district of Settsu on rainy nights, and that uninitiated rustics, mistaking it for the glowing pipe of an ox-driver, hold converse with the badger, who is at all times a sociable fellow, and have even lit their own tobacco at his and puffed it in his company. The numerous legends that Japanese fancy has woven round the will-o'-the-wisp have an interest of their own as illustrating the genius of the people, but limits of space forbid fuller reference to the subject here.

What has thus far been written about superstition will have probably prepared the reader to hear that the Japanese have always been disposed to attach great importance to divination. It is