Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things

Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things (怪談, Kaidan, also Kwaidan (archaic)), often shortened to Kwaidan, is a book by Lafcadio Hearn that features several Japanese ghost stories and a brief non-fiction study on insects. It was later used as the basis for a movie called Kwaidan by Masaki Kobayashi in 1965.

Kaidan is Japanese for "ghost story".

Stories

Hearn declares in his introduction to the first edition of the book, which he wrote on January 20, 1904, shortly before his death, that most of these stories were translated from old Japanese texts. He also states that one of the stories — Yuki-onna — was told to him by a farmer in Musashi Province, and his was, to the best of his knowledge, the first record of it. Riki-Baka is based on a personal experience of Hearn's. While he does not declare it in his introduction, Hi-Mawari — among the final narratives in the volume — seems to be a recollection of an experience in his childhood (it is, setting itself apart from almost all the others, written in the first person and set in rural Wales).

• The Story of Mimi-nashi Hōichi
• Oshidori
• The Story of O-Tei
• Ubazakura
• Diplomacy
• Of a Mirror and a Bell
• Jikininki
• Mujina
• Rokurokubi (description of folktale)
• A Dead Secret
• Yuki-onna
• The Story of Aoyagi
• Jiu-Roku-Zakura
• The Dream of Akinosuke
• Riki-Baka
• Hi-Mawari
• Hōrai

Insect studies

In the last half of the book, Hearn presents collected Chinese/Japanese superstitions and his own personal thoughts on various members of the insect world.

• Butterflies: Personification of the human soul.
• Mosquitoes: Karmic reincarnation of jealous or greedy people in the form of Jiki-ketsu-gaki or "blood-drinking pretas".
• Ants: Mankind's superior in terms of chastity, ethics, social structure, longevity and evolution.

External links

• Sacred-Texts.com's digitized edition of the book.
• Kwaidan at Project Gutenberg