Yesterday I wrote that Lafcadio Hearn, who came to call himself Yakumo Koizumi, had been interested in the supernatural and the spooky way before he moved to Japan. Here’s an example of what I mean. What is the fear of ghosts among those who believe in ghosts? All fear is the result of experience,—experience of […]
When we talk about Lafcadio Hearn we often think of his folklore stories, but he also wrote a whole bunch of other stuff, and he has been fascinated by the supernatural and the macabre long before he moved to Japan. This is one of them. Long before I had arrived at what catechisms call the […]
The body was cold as ice; the heart had long ceased to beat, yet there were no other signs of death. Nobody even spoke of burying the woman. She had died of grief and anger at having been divorced. It would have been useless to bury her,—because the last undying wish of a dying person […]
The theatre was full. I cannot remember what they were playing. I did not have time to observe the actors. I only remember how vast the building seemed. Looking back, I saw an ocean of faces stretching away almost beyond the eye’s power of definition to the far circles where the seats rose tier above […]
The daimyō’s wife was dying, and knew that she was dying. She had not been able to leave her bed since the early autumn of the tenth Bunsei. It was now the fourth month of the twelfth Bunsei,—the year 1829 by Western counting; and the cherry-trees were blossoming. She thought of the cherry-trees in her garden, […]
“I am not afraid to die,” said the dying wife; — “there is only one thing that troubles me now. I wish that I could know who will take my place in this house.” “My dear one,” answered the sorrowing husband, “nobody shall ever take your place in my home. I will never, never marry […]
Today’s reading on my Patreon is “The Spectre Barber” by Johann Karl August Musäus translated and collected by Helen Smith in The Decameron of the West (1839).
by Sarah Elizabeth Utterson in Tales of the Dead (1813) “Of shapes that walk At dead of night, and clank their chains, and wave The torch of hell around the murderer’s bed.” Pleasures of Imagination. On the evening of the 12th of June 17—, a joyous party was assembled at Monsieur de Montbrun’s château to celebrate the marriage of […]
The curtains were half drawn, the floor was swept And strewn with rushes, rosemary and may Lay thick upon the bed on which I lay, Where through the lattice ivy-shadows crept. He leaned above me, thinking that I slept And could not hear him; but I heard him say: “Poor child, poor child:” and as […]
Today’s reading on my Patreon comes from Tales of Terror (1899) by James Edward Preston Muddock. Neisse is a small town in Silesia. At the period of this story it lay somewhat out of the beaten track, and its inhabitants led a simple, primitive sort of life, although bickerings and wranglings, cheating and knavery were not […]