Centuries ago in Akamagaseki on Honshu’s southern shore, lived a blind biwa (lute) player named Hoichi at Amidaji Temple. A skilled musician, it was said his musical rendition of the tragic tale of the Battle of Dan-no-ura could move even goblins to tears. One night while alone in the temple, the blind musician was playing to pass the time when the booming voice of a samurai commanded him to follow him, so that he may play for his lord who had heard much about Hoichi’s biwa prowess.

A samurai was never one to be disobeyed, so doing as he was told Hoichi followed him into the night. They walked until coming to a gate. When the samurai announced himself it creaked open to allow entry.

Hoichi was puzzled but followed. Though blind, he knew the area well. There was no lord’s palace here and the only gate belonged to Amidaji Temple. They were led into the palace where he could hear high-class voices speaking the peculiar language of the courts and the rustle of silk clothing. Walking over tatami he was seated and commanded to play the tale of Dan-no-ura.

And so he began to perform the epic which would take a full week to complete. He played and sang of that history-altering naval clash between the Taira and Minamoto in the straits between Honshu and Kyushu, just off shore of Amagaseki. How when the battle turned against the Taira, they were lost to the unforgiving sea- the soldiers, the nobles and their families, and child emperor Antoku. Amidaji Temple was built to venerate Antoku and sooth the souls of those lost during the ancient battle. The performance moved all present and Hoichi could hear how they wept. When he finished for the night he was returned to his temple and ordered never to speak of his command engagement. The samurai would return the following night to retrieve him for the next part of the performance.

In the morning, the temple priest was concerned about Hoichi because he refused to speak of where he went the previous night, and so had him followed. Well after midnight Hoichi abruptly rose from the temple veranda, as if beckoned by an unheard voice, and disappeared into the drizzling, dark night. He moved swifter than a blind man safely could and the priest’s servants quickly lost track of him; so after a fruitless search they returned to Amidaji Temple. It was back at Amidaji they heard the sound of a biwa and found Hoichi playing amongst the tombs, his only audience ethereal balls of fire suspended mid-air all about the cemetery…

The following day the priest confronted Hoichi with this information and warned him that he was playing for spirits that would rip him asunder once he had satisfied demands. To protect Hoichi the priest and his acolytes wrote sutras on his body from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. Properly protected from evil spirits, Hoichi was told to wait in his usual place on the veranda in perfect stillness as if in meditation. The spirits would be unable to sense his warded body and once tricked would leave him be.

The samurai returned that night in search of Hoichi, who did not come when beckoned. He came upon the veranda and looked around. The bard was gone, but his biwa and two ears were visible- the acolytes had forgotten to put sutras on them. Using ghost logic the samurai realized the poor bard was no more and all that remained of him were his ears, which he took with him to show his lord. Hoichi remained stock still and silent even as the ears were ripped from his head and stayed unmovable as a statue until the break of dawn.

The spirits would never again bother Hoichi. He would go on to gain great fame and wealth playing his biwa, and would be known as Mimi-nashi Hoichi- Hoichi the Earless.

Hoichi’s Amidaji Temple (Akama Shrine)

I can’t say whether or not Hoichi ever lived or is purely a myth, but Amidaji Temple unquestionably does though Hoichi would no longer recognize it or the strange metal beasts that now roam the asphalt trail before it. Akamagaseki is now Shimonoseki and because it venerates an emperor, Amidaji Temple was converted to a Shinto shrine in 1888 and renamed Akama Shrine.

Visitors enter through a splendid vermillion and white gate that draws inspiration from a mythical undersea palace and beyond the main hall the souls of Dan-no-Ura are still laid to rest in memorial mounds and graves. If you’re feeling adventurous, a path leading into the wooded hills beyond Akama is great for exercise and finding even more memorials and graves that stand alone in the middle of the forest. Not unnerving in the slightest.

As this was his home for a time, Hoichi has a statue and memorial hall. For those that want to learn more about the Taira or Heike clan and the 1185 A.D. Battle of Dan-no-ura there is a treasure hall with artifacts.

Akama Shrine is surrounded by sightseeing possibilities for the whole family as several museums and the Karato fish market are nearby.  Karato is an easy-access place for visitors to try Shimonoseki’s favorite delicacy, fugu (puffer fish). Don’t let its inaccurate depiction in Western media scare you away, fugu is safe and delicious. My favorite preparation is the blackened fugu fish and chips at Tearoom Liz in the former British Consulate.

And after tempting your culinary fate over dinner, why not take a walk through the forest beyond Akama Shrine and listen for the sound of biwa?

Lafcadio Hearn and Kwaidan: Bringing Hoichi and other Weird Tales to the West

Hoichi’s story was first written several centuries ago, but it came to the English-speaking world in 1904 when it was recorded alongside 16 other tales of inhuman creatures that inhabit lonely highway inns, beautiful snow spirits that will stop your heart and men who unwittingly marry trees. That book is Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things by Lafcadio Hearn.

My personal 1932 Tokyo Limited Editions Club copy; taken onboard SL Oigawa in a 1940s passenger train car.

His name is virtually unknown outside of Japan today, but before every foreigner with an internet connection started writing a blog or Vblog detailing their life and adventures in Japan, there was Hearn. He arrived in 1890 with the intention of writing articles for an American magazine and leaving within a few years. Instead he almost immediately quit his job, traveled the country teaching English in schools and universities, married a Japanese spouse and became a naturalized citizen under the name Koizumi Yakumo, all the while publishing book after book on his new adopted homeland. Ironically, for a man whose very presence and occupation sped along Japan’s modernization, he had fallen in love with the old Japan and his dozen works on the nation and its culture gave many in America their first glimpses of this unfamiliar Japan.

An Irish immigrant to America, but born on a Greek island to an Irish British Army officer and his Greek wife, Hearn was a born traveler and one with a fascination for learning about new cultures as well as their ghost stories. It didn’t hurt he was also a gifted author who spent years working as a newspaper reporter in Cincinnati and New Orleans, where he showed a knack for crime reporting as he wrote graphic and haunting accounts of murder and violence. This ability would stand him in good stead when he began working on Kwaidan.

Though many have written on Japanese folk tales and horror stories since, Kwaidan is still worth reading today because of Hearn’s beautiful and captivating prose. A Victorian storyteller with genuine love for his source material, he conveys his stories as naturally as telling it to you himself whilst passing the time huddled around a hearth on a dark autumn night. All the while he provides easy to understand cultural context as he guides his audience into this supernatural world. Kwaidan has a layered quality to its storytelling as more than a century on its stories are those of romanticized “Old Japan” being related to us by a man of a past age in the prose of his time, and these tales themselves sometimes hearkened back to yet another era where the line between myth and history is blurred. Japan after all, is a land with an imperial family that has reigned for two millennia beginning with the grandson of a sun goddess.

Lafcadio Hearn Museums and Residences

To learn more about Hearn and his works, you can visit the Yaizu Lafcadio Hearn Museum in Yaizu, Shizuoka Prefecture. To escape the hustle and bustle of Tokyo, the Imperial University professor escaped to the rural fishing village to enjoy its wild seas, simple life and to live amongst the kind and friendly locals. The museum paints an idyllic picture of Hearn’s home life with letters written in his rudimentary Japanese, ‘Herun-kotoba’ (“Hearn Words”), between him and his children. His own childhood had been tumultuous as his parents divorced; he spent time with a wealthy great aunt and at Catholic school before running away and enduring London slums for two years, so he seemed rather devoted to giving his children and wife the home he never had.

Yaizu Lafcadio Hearn Memorial Museum

The little museum has a collection of Hearn artifacts as well as many early editions of his Japanese works. During my visit last fall they had displays of Hearn’s own drawings of spirits and yokai (monsters). The museum is entirely in Japanese and English.

Reproduction of Hearn’s study at the Yaizu fish shop

The summer house itself, actually a fish shop, was relocated to Meiji-mura in Inuyama, Aichi Prefecture. Meiji-mura is an open-air architectural park that gathers more than 60 Meiji-era buildings into a small town-like setting with all being open as museums or preserved as lived in.

Lafcadio Hearn’s Summering House (Yamaguchi Otokichi’s fish shop) at Meiji-mura

For about two years Hearn taught at the Fifth Higher Middle School (now Kumamoto University) in Kumamoto and one of his residences has been preserved as well and covers his time teaching in that city. There’s also an amusing comparison of Hearn and his contemporary Natsume Soseki. Both were famous authors who also taught English in the same Japanese schools and universities, but never at the same time. In Tokyo Imperial University, Hearn is described by students as being a captivating lecturer who relied on no notes and wrote the most important points very clearly on the chalkboard; his successor Natsume relied entirely on textbook teaching and lecture notes filled to the margins giving him a neurotic reputation.

Lafcadio Hearn Kumamoto Residence

Another Hearn museum is co-located with his former residence in Matsue, Shimane Prefecture. Someday I hope to get back down that way to visit.

ADDRESSES

Akama Shrine
4-1 Amidaijicho, Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi 750-0003

Former British Consulate and Tearoom Liz
4-11 Karatocho, Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi 750-0005
http://www.kyu-eikoku-ryoujikan.com/english/

Yaizu Lafcadio Hearn Memorial Museum
1550 Sangamyo, Yaizu, Shizuoka 425-0071

Lafcadio Hearn Residence (Kumamoto)
2-6 Anseimachi, Chuo Ward, Kumamoto, 860-0801

Lafcadio Hearn Museum and Residence (Matsue)
322 Okudanicho, Matsue, Shimane 690-0872
https://www.hearn-museum-matsue.jp/english.html

Meiji-mura (Hearn Summer House)
1 Uchiyama, Inuyama, Aichi 484-0000
https://www.meijimura.com/english/