Page:Japanese Gardens (Taylor).djvu/172

110 water. Lafcadio Hearn tells the following tale of one haunted well:—

“Himeji contains the ruins of a great castle of thirty turrets; and a daimio used to dwell therein, whose revenue was one hundred and fifty-six thousand koku of rice. Now, in the house of one of that daimio’s chief retainers was a maid-servant of good family, whose name was O Kiku; and the Kiku signifies a Chrysanthemum flower. Many precious things were entrusted to her charge, and among other things ten costly dishes of gold. One of these was suddenly missed and could not be found; and the girl, being responsible therefor, and knowing not otherwise how to prove her innocence, drowned herself in a well. But ever thereafter her ghost, returning nightly, could be heard counting the dishes slowly, with sobs: Ichi-mai, Ni-mai, San-mai, Yo-mai, Go-mai, Roku-mai, Shichi-mai, Hachi-mai, Ku-mai.

“Then there would be heard a despairing cry and a loud burst of weeping, and again the girl’s voice counting the dishes plaintively: ‘One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.’

“Her spirit passed into the body of a strange little insect, whose head faintly resembled that of a ghost with long dishevelled hair; and it is called the O Kiku-Mushi, or the ‘Fly of O Kiku’; and it is found, they say, nowhere save in Himeji.