Reading Lafcadio Hearn's Kwaidan in Japanese: Hoichi the Earless and Yuki-Onna
Hiroki Obara · Developer
Lafcadio Hearn, known in Japan as Koizumi Yakumo (小泉八雲), was born on the Greek island of Lefkada on June 27, 1850. According to the Lafcadio Hearn Memorial Museum in Matsue, he arrived in Japan in April 1890 and that August became an English teacher at a middle school in Matsue. In 1896 he formally married Koizumi Setsu, became a Japanese citizen and took the name Koizumi Yakumo. Kwaidan came out in April 1904, and he died that September 26, at 54.
October is a good month for ghost stories, and Hearn’s are among the best known in Japan. This post looks at reading them in Japanese.
What Aozora Bunko actually has
The first thing to know is that Hearn wrote in English. Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things is an English book. What you find on Aozora Bunko, the free library of Japanese texts, is a Japanese translation.
The Aozora card for 耳無芳一の話 (The Story of Mimi-Nashi-Hōïchi) gives the original title and names the translator as 戸川明三 (Togawa Akizō). That was the real name of the essayist 戸川秋骨 (Togawa Shūkotsu), who, the same card notes, helped found the literary magazine 文学界.
The four stories below all come from volume 8 of a home edition of Hearn’s collected works, published by 第一書房 (Daiichi Shobō) in 1937. The book used old kanji and old kana spelling; Aozora Bunko changed the text to modern spelling (新字新仮名).
| Japanese title | English title | Translator | Characters | Kanji ratio |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 貉 | Mujina | 戸川明三 | about 1,500 | 28% |
| 雪女 | Yuki-Onna | 田部隆次 | about 3,300 | 30% |
| ろくろ首 | Rokuro-Kubi | 田部隆次 | about 6,900 | 28% |
| 耳無芳一の話 | The Story of Mimi-Nashi-Hōïchi | 戸川明三 | about 7,900 | 32% |
The Aozora texts are counted the same way as in Reading Natsume Sōseki as a Japanese Learner, leaving out furigana, editorial notes and spaces. Each is a single evening’s read.
First: Mujina
One place to start is 貉 (むじな, Mujina). Its Aozora card files it under のっぺらぼう, the faceless ghost. At about 1,500 characters it is the shortest of the four.
It opens with 「東京の、赤坂への道に紀国坂という坂道がある」 (“On the Akasaka road in Tokyo there is a slope called Kii-no-kuni-zaka”). A man on a dark slope speaks to a woman who is crying. If you have read the English, you already know what happens next, and that is a help: you won’t lose the thread over a word you don’t know.
Second: Yuki-Onna
雪女 (Yuki-Onna, the snow woman) is about 3,300 characters. It begins with two woodcutters, 茂作 (Mosaku) and 巳之吉 (Minokichi), from a village in Musashi Province.
In his preface to Kwaidan, Hearn says a farmer of Chōfu, in Nishitama district of Musashi, told him this story as a legend of his village (the English edition on Project Gutenberg).
One warning. The Aozora text of 雪女 has no furigana at all. About 30% of it is kanji, and words like 年季奉公人 (apprentice) and 僥倖 (good fortune) appear. You will look up more words than usual. The story is easy to follow, though, which makes it good practice for reading with a dictionary.
Third: Hoichi the Earless
耳無芳一の話 is about 7,900 characters, the longest of the four. Its card lists it under 耳なし芳一 (Hōichi the Earless).
It opens with 「七百年以上も昔の事、下ノ関海峡の壇ノ浦で」 (“More than seven hundred years ago, at Dan-no-ura in the Straits of Shimonoseki”). The first paragraph explains the last battle between the Heike and the Genji and the legends that followed, in long sentences full of kanji. Hōichi, the blind biwa player, only appears in the third paragraph. If the first paragraph feels heavy, you can move on once you see it is background. Once Hōichi goes to live at the temple, the story moves quickly.
ろくろ首 (Rokuro-Kubi), about the same length, follows a samurai who becomes a priest and travels. It makes a good next read.
What tends to trip learners up
The source book is from 1937, and the Japanese differs from today’s in places.
Readings set by furigana. In Hōichi, 焦慮 carries the furigana もが and 整然 carries ちゃん: 焦慮いていた is read もがいていた (was struggling), and 整然と is read ちゃんと (properly). If you look up 整然 in a dictionary you get せいぜん, a different word. When the furigana and the dictionary disagree, look up the furigana reading instead.
Older spellings. 親切 (kind) is written 深切, and 足音 (footsteps) is written 跫音. 言う (to say) is almost always 云う.
Quotation marks. In Hōichi, speech is set in 『』 rather than the usual 「」.
Old units. Mujina has the word 幾哩, where 哩 means a mile. In Yuki-Onna, the Japanese says 約二里 (about two ri) where Hearn’s English says “about five miles”. The translator swapped in a Japanese unit.
Reading against the English
The English originals are free on Project Gutenberg, which gives you an unusual option: read a story in English first, then in Japanese. You already know the plot, so you can pay attention to the language.
Reading the two side by side also shows what the translators did. Hearn’s “Kii-no-kuni-zaka” goes back to 紀国坂 in the Japanese. Japanese words that Hearn spelled out in roman letters for his readers are returned to kanji. In English, Hearn was explaining Japan to people outside it. Reading that, turned back into Japanese, can feel a little different from reading a Japanese novel, and it is a gentle way into older Japanese prose.
Reading Hearn in Niho
I make Niho, a free reader for iPhone and iPad that holds the Aozora Bunko catalogue of more than 17,000 works.
On the Discover screen you can search for 小泉八雲 or a title without a connection. The four stories above sit on the Translations shelf, and Hōichi is on Folk tales as well. A work’s detail screen shows its spelling and length, and the translator, for example “Translated by 戸川明三”. Tap the translator to see the other works they translated. Some editions of Hearn on Aozora use old kana spelling, and Niho tells you so before you download one.
Furigana is shown only where the text has it, so Yuki-Onna shows none. Select a word and tap Look up to see its meaning and JLPT level. When an older spelling such as 深切 isn’t in the dictionary, the Jisho item in the selection menu lets you check a web dictionary too.
Niho shows text horizontally only, not vertically. More approachable works are in 30 Easy Japanese Classics on Aozora Bunko, and Getting Started with Niho walks through your first book.
