Excerpt from The Yotsuya Kwaidan, or O'iwa Inari: Retold From the Japanese Originals Preface 05 V w17 tales of the Tokugawa can well be introduced by twg won} der stories of Nippon. One of these, the Yotsuya Kwaidan, is presented in the present volume, not so much because of the incidents involved and the peculiar relation to a phase of N ip ponese mentality, as from the fact that it contains all the machinery of the Nipponese ghost story. From this point'of view the reading of one. Of these tales disposes of a whole class of the native literature. Difference of detail is found. But unless the tale carries some particular interest, as of curious illustration of customs or history - the excuse for a second presentation - a long course of such reading becomes more than monotonous. It is unprofitable. Curiously enough, it can be said that most Nip ponese ghost stories are true. When a sword is found en shrined, itself the malevolent influence - as is the Muramasa blade of the Hamamatsu Suwa Jinja, the subject of the Komatsu Onryu of Matsubayashi Hakuchi - and with such tradition attached to it, it is difficult to deny a basis of fact attaching to the tradition. The ghost story becomes, merely an elaboration of an event that powerfully impressed the men of the day and place. Moreover this naturalistic element can be detected in the stories themselves. Nipponese writers of to-day explain most of them by the word shinkei nerves the working of a guilty con science moulding succeeding events, and interpreting the results to the subsequent disaster involved. The explanation is some what at variance with the native Shinto doctrine of the moral perfection of the Nipponese, and its maxim - follow the dictates of one's heart; but that is not our present concern. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.