Japan's Ghostly Trove of Stories for Halloween Reading

Many Japanese people associate autumn with a time for reading, spurred by the lines of a Chinese classic. If you follow that link, you’ll find some famous places with literary associations and tips on improving your Japanese reading skills. Maybe this Halloween you’re inclined to stay in and curl up with a good book. Japan’s got plenty of hair-raising folk tales and books that you can read in either Japanese or English.

Hoichi guided by a mysterious samurai in まんがトムソーヤ文庫: 怪談 

One of Japan’s iconic compilers of supernatural tales, Lafcadio Hearn, was a world-wandering chronicler of the culture and tales he encountered. His journey from Greece to Ireland to the U.S., documenting culture and traditions along the way, led him to Japan in the 1890s where he settled in to write amongst many other books Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things.

Nearly every Japanese adult you talk to knows a tale from that collection of ghost stories, "Mimi Nashi no Hoichi", Earless Hoichi. In the story, a talented blind biwa player is recruited by a dour samurai to play for his lord. But what Hoichi can’t see is that the lord and nobles are the spirits of the lost Emperor Antoku and his retinue. You’ll have to read the story to find out what befalls Hoichi.

One way to enjoy Lafcadio Hearn’s stories is through manga versions with furigana to help young learners. Your school or local library likely has multiple versions. The one I’m reading now is a little old, published in the 1990s, aimed at young readers, and illustrated by horror manga artist Hino Hideshi.

I'm reading one of the many manga retellings of Hearn's tales aimed at young readers

Long before Lafcadio Hearn, there were other masterful storytellers who scared the wits out of Japanese folks. An awesome collection of tales from the Heian era is Konjaku Monogatari, about 1000 tales of Buddhist and Japanese folklore. The stories often have a moral purpose to promote Buddhist ideals but they’ll give you goosebumps all the same. Scholar Marian Ury translated a selection of the tales and presented them as Tales of Times Now Past.

You can get your mitts on the original Japanese versions of these books at public and school libraries. Some manga versions are available, too, with furigana to help budding readers.

However, there are also supernatural tales to be enjoyed online. Zack Davisson, a translator and folklore scholar has a rich collection of yokai tales on his website. There you can read the backstory on the origins and traditions of many a spooky tale.

Have you read any of the stories and books mentioned? What's your favorite tale?