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The Obon Celebration – The Ghost Festival

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Light your lanterns, put on your Yukata and get ready for The Ghost festival in Japan called The Obon Celebration. The festival, also known as Bon festival is a three day long festival each year in the late and hot summer to honor the dead.

Why is every Japanese ghost story set during the hot and humid summer nights? It’s not really, but a staggering amount is and there is a reason for it!

Beautiful lanterns: Bon-odori festval at Higashiyama Onsen (Fukushima) 17 August 2009. Photo by: Yoichiro Akiyama/source

In mid July you can hear the sound of wind chimes and there is shaved ice on every corner in the summer heat with people wearing their traditional Yukata. Perhaps coming from or going to one of the big parades? The cicadas sings and the Japanese takes the time to tell their many ghost stories in the hot summer nights.

Fun fact, some says that telling a chilling ghost story in the hot humid summers in Japan, will help cool you down, because of the goose bumps you get from being scared. And because of that, a trend in the Edo period started with telling ghost stories in the theaters in the summer times, called Kaidan.

Read Also: Some of the most famous Kaidan ghost stories is: The Myth of Oiwa — The Paper Lantern Ghost, Botan Dōrō – Tales of the Peony Lantern and Banchō Sarayashiki — the Ghost of Okiku. Check out the full story here.

The Obon Celebration is not only an ancestral celebration from the old days they keep alive. Horror movies takes over the cinema, Kabuki theaters put on their traditional ghost plays and teenagers dares each other to visit the cemeteries at night, making the whole festival seem very similar to the modern Halloween celebration in the west.

The paranormal hunters are also about, visiting well known haunted locations around the country and the belief in spirits reach an all time high. But there are also less sinister traditions that comes with the festival.

The Buddhist Obon Celebration

So what really is the The Obon Celebration other than watching horror movies, telling ghost stories and ghost hunting? Obon (お盆) or just Bon (盆) is a Japanese Buddhist custom to honor the spirits of one’s ancestors that incorporated the Japanese native folk religion Shinto, differentiating it a bit from the other Buddhist Ghost Festivals from other countries.

The Obon Celebration originated from the Indian and Chinese Ghost Festival during ghost month. There are many variant of this ghost festivals across the Asian continent coming from the same buddhist story.

Read Also: Interested in more haunted Japanese tales? Have a look at all our ghost stories from Japan

The Obon Celebration is one of the few events on the Japanese calendar that focuses on the importance of family and is there to give the families in Japan time together. It is not a public holiday, but customary to be given leave to travel to your hometown, back to your family. Both the living, as well as the dead.

Welcoming the Dead: “Bonfire for the Spirits of the Dead (Okuribi)”, two-panel screen, Color painting on silk from 1916. Showing how the Japanese light fires to welcome the spirits of the dead during Obon in a ritual known as Mukaebi.

When is Obon Celebrated?

The Obon Celebration has been going on every summer for over 500 years. The exact dates changes according to where you live though because the lunar calendar was changed in favor to the Gregorian calendar instead. During these days the employers often grant their workers and the trains, planes and busses are filled with people out in the countryside to celebrate it with their family or into the cities to join the big parades and happenings throughout all big cities.

Read Also: More articles on Paranormal Festivals and Happenings found in the MoonMausoleum.

In eastern Japan, it is held 15th of July, but in the western part it’s held on August 15. However, in Okinawa and the Amami Islands it’s different again and follow the Chinese way to celebrate on the 15th day of the 7th lunar month like their ghost festival. In common though, the festival lasts for three days and the official Obon holiday is from 13-15 July.

Visiting the Grave: A huge part of The Obon Celebration is going home and visiting the graves of your ancestors, clean them and make offerings to them throughout the festival before sending them back to the afterlife.

It is believed that during these three days the ancestors spirits return to the world to visit their relatives. In this time the veil between the spirit world and the world of the living is at its thinnest and therefore the spirit can pass through.

How do the Japanese Celebrate Obon?

To prepare for the return of the ancestors during the The Obon Celebration, the Japanese clean the grave sites in a ritual called Haka Mari. From the newly cleaned graves it gives a path to them back to the house in a ritual called mukae-bon. A spirit altar is put up back at the home and offerings like fruit, flowers and incense is given.

Floating lanterns: Tōrō nagashi float in the river in Hiroshima, as part of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony in 2009. Photo: 藤谷良秀(Yoshihide Fujitani) /source

The Obon Celebration begins with Mukaebi, which is a ritual of lightning fires to guide spirits home for the duration of the festival. Often in the form of lanterns hung in front of the houses.

In this way the Obon Celebration reminds much of the western All Saints Days or Halloween celebration as it is believed the veil separating the living and the dead world is thinner and it’s a time for hauntings and ghost roaming the world.

Read Also: Halloween Traditions Across the World

The lanterns most often used is the traditional paper chochin lanterns, but how you use these lanterns and were is very different from region to region.

In some regions of Japan they light up huge fires outside the houses instead of lanterns. Like they do in The Daimonji Festival in Kyoto were they light up series of , 200m-long, character-shaped bonfires built on mountainsides.

When the Obon Celebration ends, the chochin lanterns is often used to guide them back to the spirit world, a ritual called okuri-bon.

On the final evening of the Obon festival it is thought that placing floating lanterns down the rivers will help guide the spirits back to the spirit world if you live close to a river or some sort of water. This tradition has gained a lot of popularity in modern time.

This ceremony is called Tōrō nagashi 灯籠流し, but the custom of sending floating lanterns during the Obon Celebration differs from place to place. The largest floating lanterns event though is in Hiroshima and Nagasaki to commemorate the victims of the atomic bombs during the second world war.

Welcoming and Feeding the Hungry Ghosts

One of the things The Obon Celebration is for, is to ease the suffering of spirits. To do this they have to perform the ritual of segaki 施餓鬼, meaning feeding the hungry ghosts, otherwise known as a vengeful spirit, or in the western tradition: a poltergeist. It is a ritual of Japanese Buddhist tradition.

Read Also: Interested in more ghost stories about the Hungry ghosts? How about reading about the chinese ghost story of: The Story of Tu-Po – The Hungry Ghost or about the Japanese vengeful ghost: Onryo – The Japanese Vengeful Spirit

During the festival, the ritual is performed at Buddhist temples and more offerings are given to the hungry ghosts: Rice and water. This is for the muenbotoke, or the ghosts with no living relatives that have no one to welcome them.

The food served is often vegetarian and a thing eaten much of is sticky rice balls called ohagi and odango.

Another significant ritual people do during the Obon festival is to craft a cucumber horse and eggplant cow, known as shōryō uma (精霊馬, “spirit horse”) or ushi uma (牛馬, “cow horse”). This type of carved food works almost as a vessel for the ancestors to come back home when the festival starts and return when it’s over.

Food Offerings at the Alter: Cucumber and Eggplant crafted as a vessel so the spirits can come and go during the Obon Festival //Source: Wikimedia

The Buddhist Dance from the Spirit Realm Bon Odori

But exactly why do the Buddhists and buddhism influenced places celebrate the dead during this time? It is best seen through one of the ways the Japanese celebrate.

The Bon Dori Dance 盆踊りis a dancing style performed during The Obon Celebration. It comes from the story of Maha Maudgalyayana, or simply Mokuren which was the incident that made people celebrate the ghost festival in the first place. He was a disciple of Buddha and used his powers to look into the spirit realm. There he saw his mother, and saw she had become a hungry ghost.

He asked Buddha what to do and Buddha said to give offerings to the monks that completed their summer retreat on the 15th day of the 7th month. Mokuren did it and it worked. His mother was freed from the suffering of being a hungry ghost. He burst out dancing from pure joy.

Bon Odori Dance: This is a scene from one of the dance festival at the Hanazono Shrine, Shinjuku, Tokyo city. They are celebrating The Obon Celebration. Yukata-clad people dance in circles around the yagura as the music plays just as Maha Maudgalyayana did when he saved his mother from the afterlife as a hungry ghost.

The dance has so many variations and each region perform their local dance with their own music, however, the Japanese taiko drum is often used to the melodies of old folk songs.

There are several big parades showcasing the Bon Odori dance during the Obon Celebrations. The Tokushima Awa Festival (阿波踊り) is perhaps the most well known bon odori dance that draws millions of visitors to Tokushima to watch and join the huge parades in the city. There are the also Gujo Odori Festival in Gifu (郡上おどり) and the Akita Bon Odori Nishimonai Festival (西馬音内盆踊り). These are all well known for their Bon Dori during the ghost festival, but it is held smaller Bon Odori dances as well everywhere.

Since the celebration and all its customs is so different from region to region, the dance will look so different as well. But very often it is people lining up in a circle around a wooden scaffold made for the festival called Yagura. The dance can also include the history of the region as well. Like mimicking fishing in fishing areas, dance moves reminding of digging in coal mining areas and the likes. What they have in common though is their intent is to honor their ancestors and those that came before us.

Things to Watch out for During the Ghost Festival

Although mostly a family holiday and a time to spend with your family and religious days of remembrance and folk festivities, there are also several superstition that are said to be remembered during the days.

The first rule during Obon to beware of is to not take pictures during the night so not to capture a ghost. Perhaps a bit difficult because of all the festivities people take a photo of to remember.

It is also said not to swim as it is more likely to be drowned by a ghost. Do not steal the food offering to the hungry ghost of obvious reasons. Do not hang your clothes out to dry in the night as iit believed that the dead will wear them and don’t put the slipper heals towards your bed. Ghost will find your bed and climb into it, causing sleep paralysis.

All in all, do not do anything but being respectful to the dead during the Obon Celebration.

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References:

https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Bon_Festival
https://www.jrailpass.com/blog/obon-festival-in-japan
https://www.tokyocreative.com/articles/18387-chilling-tales-for-hot-nights-ghosts-in-japan
Season of Ghosts: The Japanese Tradition of Scary Summer Stories | Work in Japan for engineers
What is Obon? Japan’s festival for the dead.

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Best Horror Summer Books For the Beach

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Ah the long summer days. At the beach, in the woods. Far away or close at home. Summer season is reading season and some horror books is just what we need to contrast the floral pattern people thinking about flowers and picking shells. Give us the blood, the gore and the eerily feeling of cold ghosts not even the sun can shine away.

This is a list of something new, and something classic. One can pick and choose now a days, and even the format. If you rather listen to the audio book version, this is included here as well!

Affiliation disclaimer. We are using affiliated links in these posts. that means if you purchase something through these links, we earn a small commission from it. And with that out of the way, let’s get to the good stuff!

Jaws

By Peter Benchley

Published 1974

It amazes me just how many that have watched this movie, but never read the book, or rather, didn’t know it was a book. So in that regard, this will be on every horror summer list until everyone have reached enlightenment. The interesting thing about this book is actually what happened to the writer of it. Benchley felt so responsible giving the shark its bad rep that he has no became one of its protector. He said in an article for the National Geographic published in 2000, Benchley writes “considering the knowledge accumulated about sharks in the last 25 years, I couldn’t possibly write Jaws today … not in good conscience anyway. Back then, it was generally accepted that great whites were anthropophagus (they ate people) by choice. Now we know that almost every attack on a human is an accident: The shark mistakes the human for its normal prey.”

Synopsis: Peter Benchley’s Jaws first appeared in 1974. As well as Steven Spielberg’s film adaptation, the novel has sold over twenty million copies around the world, creating a legend that refuses to die – it’s never safe to go back in the water . . .

It was just another day in the life of a small Atlantic resort until the terror from the deep came to prey on unwary holiday makers. The first sign of trouble – a warning of what was to come – took the form of a young woman’s body, or what was left of it, washed up on the long, white stretch of beach . . .

A summer of terror has begun . . .

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Sharp Objects

By Gillian Flynn

Publication date 27 Feb 2015

It is not everything of Gillian Flynn that I like, but I like, I really like. Sharp Objects is such a messed up book, and the description of the more gory stuff is gut wrenching.

Synopsis: Fresh from a brief stay at a psych hospital, reporter Camille Preaker faces a troubling assignment: she must return to her tiny hometown to cover the murders of two preteen girls. For years, Camille has hardly spoken to her neurotic, hypochondriac mother or to the half-sister she barely knows: a beautiful thirteen-year-old with an eerie grip on the town. Now, installed in her old bedroom in her family’s Victorian mansion, Camille finds herself identifying with the young victims—a bit too strongly. Dogged by her own demons, she must unravel the psychological puzzle of her own past if she wants to get the story—and survive this homecoming.

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Lovecraft Country

By Matt Ruff

Published February 16th 2016

This is on the list because it is of one of the most anticipated series right now, and people better get to reading this before it comes out. Use this summer to it!

Synopsis: Chicago, 1954. When his father Montrose goes missing, twenty-two year-old Army veteran Atticus Turner embarks on a road trip to New England to find him, accompanied by his Uncle George – publisher of The Safe Negro Travel Guide – and his childhood friend Letitia. On their journey to the manor of Mr. Braithwhite – heir to the estate that owned one of Atticus’s ancestors – they encounter both mundane terrors of white America and malevolent spirits that seem straight out of the weird tales George devours.

At the manor, Atticus discovers his father in chains, held prisoner by a secret cabal named the Order of the Ancient Dawn – led by Samuel Braithwhite and his son Caleb – which has gathered to orchestrate a ritual that shockingly centers on Atticus. And his one hope of salvation may be the seed of his – and the whole Turner clan’s – destruction.

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Anna Dressed in Blood

By Kendare Blake

Published October 17th 2011

Needed to put in one of these enjoyable YA horror. It is set in the summer months of a small town, and it is a classic kind of bored high school students going to a haunted house on a dare. Plus, it has ghost hunters in it. Love it!

Synopsis: Cas Lowood is no ordinary guy – he hunts dead people.

People like Anna. Anna Dressed in Blood. A beautiful, murderous ghost entangled in curses and rage. Cas knows he must destroy her, but as her tragic past is revealed, he starts to understand why Anna has killed everyone who’s ever dared to enter her spooky home.

Everyone, that is, except Cas…

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The Ritual

 By Adam Nevill

Published May 28th 2011

This really took off after the movie came out as well and is one of the many examples lately of why you shouldn’t go to Scandinavia for the summer.

Synopsis: In Adam Nevill’s The Ritual, four old university friends reunite for a hiking trip in the Scandinavian wilderness of the Arctic Circle. No longer young men, they have little left in common and tensions rise as they struggle to connect. Frustrated and tired they take a shortcut that turns their hike into a nightmare that could cost them their lives.

Lost, hungry and surrounded by forest untouched for millennia, they stumble across an isolated old house. Inside, they find the macabre remains of old rites and pagan sacrifices; ancient artefacts and unidentifiable bones. A place of dark ritual and home to a bestial presence that is still present in the ancient forest, and now they’re the prey.

As the four friends struggle toward salvation they discover that death doesn’t come easy among these ancient trees . . .

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The Troop

By Nick Cutter

Published February 25th 2014

Did you plan on camping in the wilderness for the summer? Don’t bring this then – or do – if you plan on having no sleep and full on paranoia attack.

Synopsis: Once every year, Scoutmaster Tim Riggs leads a troop of boys into the Canadian wilderness for a weekend camping trip–a tradition as comforting and reliable as a good ghost story around a roaring bonfire. But when an unexpected intruder stumbles upon their campsite–shockingly thin, disturbingly pale, and voraciously hungry–Tim and the boys are exposed to something far more frightening than any tale of terror. The human carrier of a bioengineered nightmare. A horror that spreads faster than fear. A harrowing struggle for survival with no escape from the elements, the infected…or one another. 

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The Elementals

By Michael McDowell

Published October 1st 1981

To proper celebrate summer season, we need to have a proper southern gothic on our reading list. And why not start with one of the now classics? A treat for horror fans out there.

Synopsis: After a bizarre and disturbing incident at the funeral of matriarch Marian Savage, the McCray and Savage families look forward to a restful and relaxing summer at Beldame, on Alabama’s Gulf Coast, where three Victorian houses loom over the shimmering beach. Two of the houses are habitable, while the third is slowly and mysteriously being buried beneath an enormous dune of blindingly white sand. But though long uninhabited, the third house is not empty. Inside, something deadly lies in wait. Something that has terrified Dauphin Savage and Luker McCray since they were boys and which still haunts their nightmares. Something horrific that may be responsible for several terrible and unexplained deaths years earlier – and is now ready to kill again . . . A haunted house story unlike any other, Michael McDowell’s The Elementals (1981) was one of the finest novels to come out of the horror publishing explosion of the 1970s and ’80s. Though best known for his screenplays for Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice and The Nightmare Before Christmas, McDowell is now being rediscovered as one of the best modern horror writers and a master of Southern Gothic literature.

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The Summer I Died

By Ryan C. Thomas.

Published January 1st 2006

A classic tale, college, beer, summer, murders.

Synopsis: When Roger Huntington comes home from college for the summer and is met by his best friend, Tooth, he knows they’re going to have a good time. A summer full of beer, comic books, movies, laughs, and maybe even girls. The sun is high and the sky is clear as Roger and Tooth set out to shoot beer cans at Bobcat Mountain. Just two friends catching up on lost time, two friends thinking about their futures . . . two friends suddenly thrust into the middle of a nightmare. Forced to fight for their lives against a sadistic killer with an arsenal of razor sharp blades and a hungry dog by his side. If they are to survive, they must decide: are heroes born, or are they made? Or is something more powerful happening to them? And more importantly, how do you survive when all roads lead to death?

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The Ruins

By Scott Smith

Published July 18th 2006

The age old question. Should tourist go places or should they stay at home. Would the world be a richer place without tourists? The horror genre would at least be poorer as this is one of the many examples of horror when tourists steps on something ancient on foreign land they don’t understand.

Synopsis: Trapped in the Mexican jungle, a group of friends stumble upon a creeping horror unlike anything they could ever imagine.Two young couples are on a lazy Mexican vacation-sun-drenched days, drunken nights, making friends with fellow tourists. When the brother of one of those friends disappears, they decide to venture into the jungle to look for him. What started out as a fun day-trip slowly spirals into a nightmare when they find an ancient ruins site . . . and the terrifying presence that lurks there.

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Ju-On: Origins – a Look at the Truth Behind “the Grudge”

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The legendary horror franchise that is “Ju-On” is back, Japanese style. Please America, don’t try to make any more remakes. Enough. But is the franchise really strong enough to carry a full fledged miniseries?

Me when someone announces an origin installment of anything. Source: IMDB

Netflix Japan tries to do just this in the first-ever horror of Netflix Japan Original, “JU-ON: Origins”. We once again visits the cursed house, seeing lots of unkempt long hair and listens to the sound of a growling cat. Usually when I see a franchise installment marked “origins”, I go NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, as most of them is just. Well, just plain lazy. But here, I have to give it to them, props for making this, but not for the reasons you might think. Written by Written by Hiroshi Takahashi and Takashige Ichise, the well known story gets a new lens to be seen through.

Haruka Honjo (Yuina Kuroshima) is a rookie actress. She hears the sounds of footsteps at night in her house. When she learns of psychic researcher Yasuo Odajima (YosiYosi Arakawa) from a TV variety program, she seeks counseling from him about her problem. She teams up with a paranormal investigator to find out the truth is. Also, there are a lot of parallel stories to follow.

Classic Ju-On, Confusing the Audiences Since the Birth of the Franchise

The atmosphere is what driving the story, mentions of the Chernobyl disaster, the fashion trends together with a moody music. It is more an exploration of the psychological drives of the characters and their story more than the scares. If there is one thing that I was left with, it was that I liked it, it just didn’t scare me. Perhaps that is because I compared it to how I felt as a younger viewer in the early 2000 watching the original. Or it could simply be that the scares they did put into it, relied more on very dramatic screaming, blood and many weird and wonky film effects.

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There are some nods to the fans of the franchise, like the cats and the their screams, working like an image of the human grief, and anger the character feels. The narratives and plot is overlapping, going in circles and bites itself in the back, just as the rest of the installments. But as a six episode long series, not a movie, does this work? Jury is out!

The very polite man: e-eee-eeetoooo Source IMDB

The characters are in the first episode all over the place, with a lot to keep tabs on in what seems to be unrelated people. And they continue to be confusing to follow, at times frustratingly so throughout the series. If you want complete closure and all questions answered, you will be truly disappointed. It takes a while until the characters really cross paths except all being connected to the house. And the only connecting device they have in the start are the same news feed through the news on retro TV’s and in passing.

The violence is the worst. So graphic, so grotesque. Always coming as a surprise in the most mundane situations, lasting for so long, reminding us that humans really is the worst. Also, in addition to that, it truly have some of the more bizarre scene I’ve witnessed in a long time. Bento in prison scene I’m looking at you.

Based on a True Story

A lot of marketing for the series have been, a “based on a true story” spin. It is not uncommon for horror movies to go this route. But is this it? What is the true story?

The legend of Ju-On is based on the legend of the Onry from Japanese folklore. A vengeful ghost, most often a woman killed by the hands of her husband or another man in close relation. And although the legend may be old stories, the news stories connecting the characters in the TV, sure reminds us about some real stories.

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Onryō — the Vengeful Japanese Spirit

In many cultures, ghosts are put in different categories. Such is the case with Onryō (怨霊 onryō,) It basically means “vengeful spirit” or “wrathful spirit” in Japanese and is a mythological spirit of vengeance from Japanese folklore. They also have ghosts, called yurei, but these differ in the will of the ghost. As opposed to…

But a clever thing they did was to subtly, or nor so subtly, actually, show real cases of murders. Poorly disguised with cover up names they always makes references to real cases when the characters are sitting, watching the news. And they do that, a lot. For instances this one case her:

In the second episode they show a news footage of the body of a girl in cement. It is 17 year old Sakura found that were held captured by three peers for a month. Something that surely reminds us of the real case of Junko Furuta back in 1977.

They also mentions the Matsumoto sarin attack in 1994 that killed eight and injured 500, perpetuated by a doomsday cult that would attack the year after in the  Tokyo subway sarin attack, with the desire to kick start their apocalypse and World War 3. Mindless violence.

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This is just some of the cases they referenced. Some actually happened in the years they are telling the stories in, from 1988 to 1997. Like for instance, they show what seems to be the Kobe Child Murders where a severed head in school 1997. And the perpetrator, a 14 year old boy, was responsible for several murders.

In my opinion this is a clever way of showing the audience a more sinister truth, lurking under this low crime country, filled with politeness and pride. There is this taboo of domestic abuse, parental neglect, misogyny, rape and intense violence that seeps through the cracks of the society.

A Social Commentary on Violence

And this is were I think the series stays strongest. Not in the jump scares, but in the social commentary. It is like a well written essay were it keeps punching away criticism of being over the top. “Oh, you think this gruesome murder of pregnant women was bad? BOOM, have a look at this actual true murder case”. It is truly were the heart of the series is, and always have. Now, the showrunners are just confident enough to rely mostly on it.

It is a lesson on violence repeating itself. Of how quickly domestic violence goes away, it is just inherited to others, creating this cycle of violence and a want for revenge in death as the characters had no way of protecting themselves in life. And so the abused becomes the abuser, and the cycle continues.

And no, I wasn’t as scared as in 2004 when Sarah Michelle Gellar introduced me to the franchise, or later when I watched the original Japanese version. But I still liked it, standing on its on. It begs the question, can men and women ever live peacefully together, as well as feeling free?

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Horror Reading List We Look Forward To

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Are you tired of sitting inside, watching I Know What You Did Last Summer again and again to get a piece of horror, but still a summer feeling? Get some books and head to the beach, your back yard, the woods or the mountains, the parks or your favourite cafe. Horror in a book format can follow you everywhere.

Want to get some new horror books on your bookshelves but don’t know were to start? Look no further. This is a list of horror books being published this summer and that we are really looking forward to. Check it out to get some inspiration to what darkness you want to bring to the beach!

Affiliate disclosure: These titles are found on book depository which moonmausoleum are affiliated with. Any purchased made through these links, we earn a small commission from. And with that said, let’s get into the good stuff!

The Institute

By Stephen King

Publication date 14 Jul 2020

The King of horror is back, giving Maine a creepy reputation as always! This summer will give us a chilling tale from the woods and a tale of kids with scary abilities. A classic from King then!

Synopsis: Deep in the woods of Maine, there is a dark state facility where kids, abducted from across the United States, are incarcerated. In the Institute they are subjected to a series of tests and procedures meant to combine their exceptional gifts – telepathy, telekinesis – for concentrated effect.

Luke Ellis is the latest recruit. He’s just a regular 12-year-old, except he’s not just smart, he’s super-smart. And he has another gift which the Institute wants to use…

Far away in a small town in South Carolina, former cop Tim Jamieson has taken a job working for the local sheriff. He’s basically just walking the beat. But he’s about to take on the biggest case of his career.

Back in the Institute’s downtrodden playground and corridors where posters advertise ‘just another day in paradise’, Luke, his friend Kalisha and the other kids are in no doubt that they are prisoners, not guests. And there is no hope of escape.

But great events can turn on small hinges and Luke is about to team up with a new, even younger recruit, Avery Dixon, whose ability to read minds is off the scale. While the Institute may want to harness their powers for covert ends, the combined intelligence of Luke and Avery is beyond anything that even those who run the experiments – even the infamous Mrs Sigsby – suspect.

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The Glass Hotel

By Emily St John Mandel

Publication date 06 Aug 2020

If this book is anything like the beautiful sci-fi Station 11, we are in for a treat. Emily St. John Madel truly has a way of poetic ways into genre writing, lifting the genre books to the heights were they deserve to be. Is she continues like this, I call for that she will contribute to change how we look at genre literature.

Synopsis: Vincent is the beautiful bartender at the Hotel Caiette, a five-star glass-and-cedar palace on the northernmost tip of Vancouver Island. New York financier Jonathan Alkaitis owns the hotel. When he passes Vincent his card with a tip, it’s the beginning of their life together. That same day, a hooded figure scrawls a note on the windowed wall of the hotel: ‘Why don’t you swallow broken glass.’ Leon Prevant, a shipping executive for a company called Neptune-Avramidis, sees the note from the hotel bar and is shaken to his core. Thirteen years later Vincent mysteriously disappears from the deck of a Neptune-Avramidis ship.

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The Only Good Indians

By Stephen Graham Jones

Publication date 21 Jul 2020

Sometimes books comes in a time were it seems fitting. Looking at how the situation of the world is today, this is one of those books we hope will reflect something deep from our time and the way we live today. Horror is good at that.

Synopsis: Ten years ago, four young men shot some elk then went on with their lives. It happens every year; it’s been happening forever; it’s the way it’s always been. But this time it’s different.

Ten years after that fateful hunt, these men are being stalked themselves. Soaked with a powerful gothic atmosphere, the endless expanses of the landscape press down on these men – and their children – as the ferocious spirit comes for them one at a time.

The Only Good Indians, charts Nature’s revenge on a lost generation that maybe never had a chance. Cleaved to their heritage, these parents, husbands, sons and Indians, men live on the fringes of a society that has rejected them, refusing to challenge their exile to limbo.

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Anno Dracula 1999: Daikaiju

 By Kim Newman

Publication date 28 Jul 2020

This look so promising, and we desperately need something from an alternative reality now. It is just as ridiculous and cool as it needs to be. This is definitely going on my summer beach reading list.

Synopsis: The new novel in the acclaimed alternate history vampire series from Kim Newman.
“Compulsory reading… glorious” Neil Gaiman on Anno Dracula It is the eve of the new millennium, and the vampire princess Christina Light is throwing a party in Daikaiju Plaza – a building in the shape of a giant mechanical dragon – in Tokyo, attended by the leaders of the worlds of technology, finance, culture and innovation. After a century overshadowed by the malign presence of Dracula, Christina decrees the inauguration of an Age of Light. The world is connected as never before by technology, and conquests have been made in cyberspace that mark out new nations of the living and the undead. But the party is crashed by less enlightened souls, intent on ensuring that the brave new world dies before it can come to fruition. The distinguished guests are held hostage by cyberpunk terrorists, yakuza assassins and Transylvanian mercenaries. Vampire schoolgirl Nezumi – sword-wielding agent of the Diogenes Club – finds herself alone, pitted against the world’s deadliest creatures. Thrown out of the party, she must fight her way back up through a building that seems designed to destroy her in a thousand ways. Can Nezumi survive past midnight? Can the hopes of a shining world?

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The Year of the Witching

By Alexis Henderson

Publication date 09 Jul 2020

The Handmaid’s Tale meets The Village in this stunning feminist debut . . .

This is the line that got me exited. If this lives up to the hype, this is the book I’ve been waited on all my life that I never knew I needed. But anything feminism horror, I stand behind. Now, let it also be super scary.

Synopsis: Born on the fringes of Bethel, Immanuelle does her best to obey the Church and follow Holy Protocol. For it was in Bethel that the first Prophet pursued and killed four powerful witches, and so cleansed the land.

And then a chance encounter lures her into the Darkwood that surrounds Bethel.

It is a forbidden place, haunted by the spirits of the witches who bestow an extraordinary gift on Immanuelle. The diary of her dead mother . . .

Fascinated by and fearful of the secrets the diary reveals, Immanuelle begins to understand why her mother once consorted with witches. And as the truth about the Prophets, the Church and their history is revealed, so Immanuelle understands what must be done. For the real threat to Bethel is its own darkness.

Bethel must change. And that change will begin with her . . .

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The Wayward Girls

By Amanda Mason

Publication date 06 Aug 2020

It looks sort of the perfect cross of back to the small time during summer holiday and look back to our childhood were it was always summer type of book. A new debut writer is always scary taking a risk on, but anything with the word wayward in it knows what’s up in the horror genre.

Synopsis: Their dangerous game became all too real . . .

THEN
1976. Loo and her sister Bee live in a run-down cottage in the middle of nowhere, with their artistic parents and wild siblings. Their mother, Cathy, had hoped to escape to a simpler life; instead the family find themselves isolated and shunned by their neighbours. At the height of the stifling summer, unexplained noises and occurences in the house begin to disturb the family, until they intrude on every waking moment . . .

NOW
Loo, now Lucy, is called back to her childhood home. A group of strangers are looking to discover the truth about the house and the people who lived there.

But is Lucy ready to confront what really happened all those years ago?

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Five Murder Ballads

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What does the Appalachian range, the Scottish Highland, the Scandinavian mountains and Nick Cave have in common? Filled of the sub genre murder ballads. A strange phenomenon we don’t hear much in songs anymore. Often a man killing his girlfriend or a mother killing her children, these bone chilling songs have lasted centuries, growing and changing according to the time and place. But one thing remains, someone is murdered.

Child Owlet

Most likely Scottish. This creepy and bloody tale of a woman’s desire turned to a crime is bone chilling when you read behind the jolly tune.

Lyric

Lady Erskine sits intae her bower, a-sowing a silken seam,
A bonny shirt for Child Owlet as he goes out and in
His face was fair, long was his hair, she’s called him to come near
“Oh, you must cuckold Lord Ronald for all his lands and gear.”

“Oh, lady, hold your tongue for shame for such should ne’er be done.
How can I cuckold Lord Ronald and me his sister’s son?”
Then she’s ta’en out a small penknife that lay beside her head
She’s pricked herself below her breast which made her body bleed.

Lord Ronald’s come into her bower where she did make her moan.
“Oh, what is all this blood,” he said, “That shines on your breast bone?”
“Young Child Owlet, your sister’s son, is new gone from my bower.
If I’d not been a good woman I’d have been Child Owlet’s whore.”

Then he has taken Child Owlet, thrown him in prison strong
And all his men a council held to judge Child Owlet’s wrong
Some said, Child Owlet he should hang, some said that he should burn,
Some said they would he Child Owlet between wild horses torn.

“Ten horses in my stable stand, can run right speedily.
It’s you must to my stable go and take out four for me.”
They tied a horse unto each foot and one unto each hand.
They’ve sent them out o’er Elkin Moor as fast as they could run.

There was no stone on Elkin Moor, no broom nor bonny whin
But’s dripping with Child Owlet’s blood and pieces of his skin.
There was no grass on Elkin Moor, no broom nor bonny rush
But’s dripping with Child Owlet’s blood and pieces of his flesh.

Down in the Willow Garden

You click on an Everly Brother’s song and expect it to be a sugar sweet song about eternal love. Little did you know you were getting a well known bloody murder-ballad about a guy murdering his girlfriend.

Lyric

Down in the Willow garden
Where me and my love did meet
As we sat a-courtin’
My love fell off to sleep
I had a bottle of Burgundy wine
My love she did not know
So I poisoned that dear little girl
On the banks below

I drew a sabre through her
It was a bloody knife
I threw her in the river
Which was a dreadful sign
My father often told me
That money would set me free
If I would murder that dear little girl
Whose name was Rose Connolly

My father sits at his cabin door
Wiping his tear-dimmed eyes
For his only son soon shall walk
To yonder scaffold high
My race is run, beneath the sun
The scaffold now waits for me
For I did murder that dear little girl
Whose name was Rose Connelly

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The Maid and the Palmer

I don’t know what the deal is with mixing happy folk tunes with the grimmest of lyrics. But it does give it an extra dimension of creepiness.

Lyric

HE maid shee went to the well to washe,
      Refrain: Lillumwham, lillumwham!
The mayd shee went to the well to washe,
      Refrain: Whatt then? what then?
The maid shee went to the well to washe,
Dew fell of her lilly white fleshe.
      Refrain: Grandam boy, grandam boy, heye!
Leg a derry, leg a merry, mett, mer, whoope, whir!
Driuance, larumben, grandam boy, heye!
While shee washte and while shee ronge,
While shee hangd o the hazle wand.
There came an old palmer by the way,
Sais, ‘God speed thee well, thou faire maid!’
‘Hast either cupp or can,
To giue an old palmer drinke therin?’
Sayes, ‘I have neither cupp nor cann,
To giue an old palmer drinke therin.’
‘But an thy lemman came from Roome,
Cupps and canns thou wold find soone.’
She sware by God & good St. John,
Lemman had shee neuer none.
Sais, ‘Peace, faire mayd, you are forsworne!
Nine children you haue borne.
‘Three were buryed vnder thy bed’s head,
Other three vnder thy brewing leade.
‘Other three on yon play greene;
Count, maid, and there be 9.’
‘But I hope you are the good old man
That all the world beleeues vpon.
‘Old palmer, I pray thee,
Pennaunce that thou wilt giue to me.’
‘Penance I can giue thee none,
But 7 yeere to be a stepping-stone.
‘Other seaven a clapper in a bell,
Other 7 to lead an ape in hell.
‘When thou hast thy penance done,
Then thoust come a mayden home.’

‘SEVEN years ye shall be a stone,
      Refrain: . . . . .
For many a poor palmer to rest him upon.
      Refrain: And you the fair maiden of Gowden-gane
‘Seven years ye’ll be porter of hell,
And then I’ll take you to mysell.’
* * * * *
‘Weel may I be a’ the other three,
But porter of hell I never will be.’

Long Lankin

I mean. If you can listen to the Wainwright sister’s version of this murder ballad, I don’t know what will affect you.

Lyric

Said the Lord unto his Lady as he rode over the moss
“Beware of Long Lankin that lives amongst the gorse
Beware the moss, beware the moor, beware of Long Lankin
Be sure the doors are bolted well
Lest Lankin should creep in”
Said the Lord unto his Lady as he rode away
“Beware of Long Lankin that lives amongst the hay
Beware the moss, beware the moor, beware of Long Lankin
Be sure the doors are bolted well
Lest Lankin should creep in”
“Where’s the master of the house?”, says Long Lankin
“He’s ‘way to London”, says the nurse to him
“Where’s the lady of the house?”, says Long Lankin
“She’s up in her chamber”, says the nurse to him
“Where’s the baby of the house?”, says Long Lankin
“He’s asleep in the cradle”, says the nurse to him
“We will pinch him, we will prick him
We will stab him with a pin
And the nurse shall hold the basin
For the blood all to run in”So they pinched him and they pricked him
Then they stabbed him with a pin
And the false nurse held the basin
For the blood all to run in”Lady, come down the stairs, ” says Long Lankin
“How can I see in the dark?”, she says unto him
“You have silver mantles”, says Long Lankin
“Lady, come down the stairs by the light of them”
Down the stairs the lady came, thinking no harm
Lankin, he stood ready to catch her in his arms
There was blood all in the kitchen
There was blood all in the hall
There was blood all in the parlor
Where my lady she did fall
Now Long Lankin shall be hanged
From the gallows, oh, so high
And the false nurse shall be burned
In the fire close by
Said the Lord unto his Lady as he rode over the moss
“Beware of Long Lankin that lives amongst the gorse
Beware the moss, beware the moor, beware of Long Lankin
Make sure the doors are bolted well
Lest Lankin should creep in”

Where the Wild Roses Grow

Most of the songs on this list is older ballads. But murder ballads is not a died out genre. The king of creepy songs, Nick Cave, wrote Where the wild roses grows in 1996. He said in an interview: “Where The Wild Roses Grow” was written very much with Kylie in mind. I’d wanted to write a song for Kylie for many years. I had a quiet obsession with her for about six years. I wrote several songs for her, none of which I felt was appropriate to give her. It was only when I wrote this song, which is a dialogue between a killer and his victim, that I thought finally I’d written the right song for Kylie to sing. I sent the song to her and she replied the next day.”

They call me The Wild Rose
But my name was Elisa Day
Why they call me it, I do not know
For my name was Elisa Day

From the first day I saw her, I knew she was the one
She stared in my eyes and smiled
For her lips were the colour of the roses
That grew down the river, all bloody and wild

When he knocked on my door and entered the room
My trembling subsided in his sure embrace
He would be my first man, and with a careful hand
He wiped at the tears that ran down my face

They call me The Wild Rose
But my name was Elisa Day
Why they call me it, I do not know
For my name was Elisa Day

On the second day, I brought her a flower
She was more beautiful than any woman I’ve seen
I said, “Do you know where the wild roses grow
So sweet and scarlet and free?”

On the second day, he came with a single red rose
He said, “Give me your loss and your sorrow”
I nodded my head as I lay on the bed
If I show you the roses, will you follow?

They call me The Wild Rose
But my name was Elisa Day
Why they call me it, I do not know
For my name was Elisa Day

On the third day, he took me to the river
He showed me the roses and we kissed
And the last thing I heard was a muttered word
As he knelt above me with a rock in his fist

On the last day I took her where the wild roses grow
She lay on the bank, the wind light as a thief
And I kissed her goodbye, said, “All beauty must die”
And lent down and planted a rose between her teeth

They call me The Wild Rose
But my name was Elisa Day
Why they call me it, I do not know
For my name was Elisa Day
My name was Elisa Day
For my name was Elisa Day

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Read the Classics – But Make Them Horror

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Does anyone remember the specific genre that took over in 2009 and 2010? The one were classics, both real persons and books were rewritten with a supernatural twist? It was one of those crazy frenzies that took over bookshelves and then disappeared. It happened so quickly and was over before another took over with a new super niche genre like dark fairy tale retellings, pale vampires and sulky angels saving people. But this particular genre lingered in my mind. It was something delicious in those years for me when two of my passions collided. My love for classic literature and gory horror.

It all started for me when I saw Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Even though Pride and Prejudice and Zombies came out before, this one was the one I read first. The writer, Seth Grahame-Smith was sort of the Buddha of gory classics and the author that really got this genre published. Yes, there was some movies based on these, but I personally only liked the Pride and Prejudice one.

Read More: 5 Funny Zombie Movies

So without further ado, if you haven’t yet jumped on this train, and you definitely should! Here I have compiled a guide of the different ones found on Audible, so you can listen to. Bear in mind, the links provided, are affiliated links, and if you decide that audible is something you are interested to, I get a small commission from it. The opinions of these particular books though, are definitely my own! So here we go!

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Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.”

This is sort of what started it all for me, also a book written by Seth Grahame-Smith. I do love Jane Austen and her humor, but sometimes, gosh, I wish something actually happened in these books. Then came this. I think it is hilarious, and well written and a fun listen, check it out!

Summary: As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton – and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she’s soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers – and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead. Can she vanquish the spawn of Satan? And overcome the social prejudices of the class-conscious landed gentry?

Read it here

Listen to it here

Dawn of the Dreadful

if you like this, the continuation of the universe, written by Steve Hockensmith is the next step.

Summary: In prequel, we witness the genesis of the zombie plague in early 19th-century England. We watch Elizabeth Bennet evolve from a naive young teenager into a savage slayer of the undead. We laugh as she begins her first clumsy training with nunchucks and katana swords and cry when her first blush with romance goes tragically awry.

There is also a sequel to the story, Dreadfully Ever After, that is about Mr Darcy being bitten by a zombie on their honeymoon.

Read it here

Listen to it here

Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters

Don’t like Pride and Prejudice? That’s fine, because the publishers thought is was a good idea to publish more of Jane Austens work with a twist. The result was Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monster by Ben H Winters.

Summary: Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters expands the original text of the beloved Jane Austen novel with all-new scenes of giant lobsters, rampaging octopi, two-headed sea serpents, and other biological monstrosities.

As our story opens, the Dashwood sisters are evicted from their childhood home and sent to live on a mysterious island full of savage creatures and dark secrets. While sensible Elinor falls in love with Edward Ferrars, her romantic sister Marianne is courted by both the handsome Willoughby and the hideous man-monster Colonel Brandon. Can the Dashwood sisters triumph over meddlesome matriarchs and unscrupulous rogues to find true love? Or will they fall prey to the tentacles that are forever snapping at their heels?

Read it here

Listen to it here

Jane Slayre

There are two type of readers. the Wuthering Heights lovers and the Jane Eyre lovers. One can love both, but the rivalry is vicious. I am definitely a team Jane Eyre and was delighted when they turned her into a bad ass slayer of vampires, zombies and werewolf.

Summery: Raised by vampire relatives, Jane grows to resent the lifestyle’s effect on her upbringing. No sunlight, nighttime hours, and a diet of bloody red meat is no way for a mortal girl to live. Things change for Jane when the ghost of her uncle visits her, imparts her parents’ slayer history, and charges her with the responsibility of striking out to find others of her kind and learn the slayer ways.

Read it here

Listen to it here

Any of this seem interesting for you? How about getting into the listening train of audio books. Now, get 50% off for the next 3 months. I’ve checked and I am now firmly sure these are the one that can offer most horror titles of the audio book platforms.

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5 gothic horror movies

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This is a collection of movies that really have that nice sublime gothic feeling about it, with all the elements that makes something gothic and would make Ann Radcliff proud.

The woman in black (2012)

Stiff British people unable to communicate, an overgrown and cursed house out in the marches, creepy kids? An unpleasant village in the countryside unwelcoming to strangers? Yes, yes, yeeees.

This movie was directed by James Watkins and written by Jane Goldman. It is the second adaptation of Susan Hill‘s 1983 novel of the same name, which was previously. Susan Hill has become somewhat of an iconic author of these creepy gothic tales. The film stars Daniel Radcliffe, Ciarán Hinds, Janet McTeer, Sophie Stuckey, and Liz White.

The plot, set in early 20th-century England, follows a young recently widowed lawyer who travels to a remote village where he discovers that the vengeful ghost of a scorned woman is terrorizing the locals. And as the lawyer he is, he will battle this ghost with: PAPERWORK!

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The Awakening (2011)

A tormented soul, pining for her dead boyfriend. A house too big for anyone, creepy kids and the reason why we fear to take a bath in old creepy houses. This is a twisty story that honors and mocks the time and the culture that surrounded the paranormal community at the start of the new century. Beside, Rebecca Hall is just the bonafide gothic queen. directed and co-written by Nick Murphy and starring Rebecca Hall, Dominic West, Isaac Hempstead-Wright and Imelda Staunton.

In 1921, Florence Cathcart is a published author who works with the police to debunk supernatural hoaxes and thus to expose charlatans. It is revealed that she lost her lover in the war and that she “hunts” ghosts in an attempt to see if it is possible to bring him back. She receives a visit a teacher from a boys’ boarding school in Cumbria. There have been sightings of the ghost of a child at the school and that such a sighting might have been the cause of the recent death of a pupil. And she goes to expose the hoax.

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Mama (2013)

This movie shows, that gothicness didn’t die in the late 1800s. Pulling with all of its tropes into the modern world, this take on the woman in white legend, will linger.

Directed and co-written by Andy Muschietti in his directorial debut and based on his 2008 Argentine short film Mamá. The film stars Jessica Chastain, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Megan Charpentier, Isabelle Nélisse, Daniel Kash, and Javier Botet as the titular character.

The film follows two young girls abandoned in a forest cabin, fostered by an unknown entity that they fondly call “Mama”, which eventually follows them to their new suburban home led by two adults after their uncle retrieves them.

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The others (2001)

It was written, directed, and scored by Alejandro Amenábar. It stars Nicole Kidman, Fionnula Flanagan, Christopher Eccleston, Elaine Cassidy, Eric Sykes, Alakina Mann and James Bentley.

A woman who lives in her darkened old family house with her two photosensitive children becomes convinced that the home is haunted.

Talk of a remake is just the most unnecessary. This is an all time favorite. A balance of the drama and the horror is just, sublime. sublime is the word. Also it ticks all the boxes, you guessed it, big mansion too big for just three, creepy kids and sorrow, just so much painful sorrow.

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The Orphanage (2007)

Also a modern take, but inspired by the classics. This is also set in an orphanage, so that means, creepy kids, so already points, points, points. The house is big, and the trauma runs deep. The unholy gothic trinity.

This movie was the debut feature of Spanish filmmaker J. A. Bayona. The film stars Belén Rueda as Laura, Fernando Cayo as her husband, Carlos, and Roger Príncep as their adopted son Simón. The plot centers on Laura, who returns to her childhood home, an orphanage. Laura plans to turn the house into a home for disabled children, but after an argument with Laura, Simón goes missing.

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The Ghosts of Japan

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In Japan, the ghosts are called Yūrei (幽霊). The word means faint or dim and soul or spirit. And as well as language and cultures divides different types of ghost in different categories, so does the Japanese. Here are some of the ghosts of Japan.

There are a lot of creatures, entities that haunts in Japanese culture. But yūrei is probably one of the more classic Ghosts of Japan and its legends and differs slightly from the others entities. They are for example the only ones haunting at a specific time, with the hour of the ox as a preference, which is from 2 to 2:30 am. This is when the veil between the dead and the living, the different worlds is at is thinnest.

The yūrei is also more geographical bound than other entities, and with a specific purpose for the hauntings. Unfinished business or vengeance, being the most common perhaps. The real tragedy is when a spirit can never find peace, because their unfinished business can never be fulfilled.

The Different Ghosts of Japan
  1. Onryō
  2. Goryō
  3. Funayūrei
  4. Ubume
  5. Zashiki-warashi
  6. Fuyūrei and Jibakurei
  7. Ikiryō

Onryō

怨霊

The Vengeful Ghost of Japan

The Vengeful Ghost of Japan

The Onryō is probably the most well known type of ghosts in Japanese culture there is. Onryō (怨霊), basically means “vengeful spirit” or “wrathful spirit” in Japanese and is a very iconic image with her white kimono and long black hair in modern ghost stories.

This particular ghost of Japan is driven by rage and consumed by revenge. This Yūrei will do anything to punish those who wronged them in life. Mostly, the spirit never starts out as evil, and wasn’t an evil person when alive. But the circumstances around their life and particularly around their death made them bit by bit as time went on and anger built up.

This type of vengeful spirit are sometimes created from the basis of love, but the jealousy perverted the love so much, it turned to hatred. In both cases, their soul are unable to pass on to be reborn and lingers in the realm of between the living and dead.

Read more about the Onryō at the Moonmausoleum

Onryō — the Vengeful Japanese Spirit

In many cultures, ghosts are put in different categories. Such is the case with Onryō (怨霊 onryō,) It basically means “vengeful spirit” or “wrathful spirit” in Japanese and is a mythological spirit of vengeance from Japanese folklore. They also have ghosts, called yurei, but these differ in the will of the ghost. As opposed to…

Banchō Sarayashiki — the Ghost of Okiku

The tale of Banchō Sarayashiki (番町皿屋敷, The Dish Mansion at Banchō) is a well known Japanese ghost story (kaidan). It was popularized in the kabuki theater tradition, and lives on in popular culture and folklore alike.

Goryō

御霊

The Noble Ghost of Japan

The Noble Ghost of Japan

Is sort of the same av an Onryō and often a Goryō ghost story follows the same pattern. It is vengeful spirits and ghosts in Japanese legends, capable of so much destruction and with a single goal in mind. The main difference from the Onryō, is that the Goryō is mostly a noble man, not a female, and the main goal is often to restore his honour he lost in real life than revenge on those who wronged him.

This Japanese ghost known as Goryō was most often from the aristocratic or royal class when in life. The Kanji 御 (go) actually means honorable while 霊 (ryō) means some sort of soul or spirit. And it is especially the case when those people were martyred or wronged, loosing their honor etc.

Funayūrei

船幽霊

The Sea Ghost of Japan

The Sea Ghost of Japan

The Funayūrei: Boatman and Funayūrei by Kawanabe Kyōsai (河鍋暁斎.

This is the Japanese ghost of those dying at sea. It literally means boat spirit and is the same as an Onryō, only out at sea. Often fishermen, sailors and the likes, people dying in shipwreck and want other to join them in the deep sea.

These types of ghosts in Japanese legends are described as being surrounded by an atmospheric light, so you can see them, even when they turn up on dark, foggy nights, rainy days and under the full or new moon. They can be described as ghost haunting the rivers and lake as well. At times, these ghost are shown as scaly fish-like, and pictures of them might be confused with mermaids or mermen.

UBUME

産女

The Mother Ghost of Japan

The Mother Ghost of Japan

Ubume: うふめ from Bakemono no e (化物之繪, c. 1700), Harry F. Bruning Collection of Japanese Books and Manuscripts, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University. source Date: circa 1700

This is the Japanese ghost of a mother who died in childbirth. It could also come if she died leaving very young children. This ghost differs a lot from the Onryō for example, for its purpose. It is not after revenge, but stays out of compassion, giving sweets and looking after her children she left behind. 

Those seeing her will see what looks like a pregnant woman pass by. Or she will approach you, telling you to hold her child, only for you to realize there isn’t a child, just a bundle of rocks or leaves.

Zashiki-warashi

座敷童子

The Child Ghost of Japan

The Child Ghost of Japan

This is what happens when children becomes ghosts in Japanese legends. They are not really depicted as dangerous, but at times mischievous. They would do pranks, leaving prints in the kitchen and the likes, but it also meant good fortune for them who saw them. But what are these Japanese ghosts? Strange otherworldly child-like creatures, or spirits of children?

It has been theories that they are the spirit of children that were killed when there were too many mouths to feed. It was back in the day a rather gruesome tradition to be killed by a stone and buried in the dirt floor room called doma or in the kitchen.

Fuyūrei and Jibakurei

浮遊霊

The Wandering Ghost of Japan

The Wandering Ghost of Japan

These two Japanese ghosts are very similar to each other. They are both spirit with no purpose, wandering aimlessly around, earthbound, often just going in circle and in a loop. Unable to find peace.

Ikiryō

生き霊

The Living Ghost of Japan

The Living Ghost of Japan

This is a very peculiar one and a bit on the side from the other ghosts in Japanese culture. It is when a part of the living soul or spirit leaves the body to haunt people or a specific place. Often across distances as well.

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Banchō Sarayashiki — the Ghost of Okiku

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One of the more well known ghost stories in Japan is of the poor servant Okiku in the ghost story Banchō Sarayashiki has become the very image of a Japanese ghost story. The girl that died in the well and comes back, forever counting the plates of her master, hoping that one time, she won’t be missing any.

Okiku Well: by Katsushika Hokusai, most known for making the The Great Wave off Kanagawa, painting. From the one hundred ghost tales series. depicting the Banchō Sarayashiki

The tale of Banchō Sarayashiki (番町皿屋敷, The Dish Mansion at Banchō) is a well known Japanese ghost story (kaidan). It was popularized in the kabuki theater tradition, and lives on in popular culture and folklore alike.

Banchō Sarayashiki is a tale of dying unjustly and the haunting of righting a wrong. The story always revolves around Okiku, a servant, who was killed by her master. Not to be confused with Okiku, the haunted doll which is equally terrifying, but a different tale altogether.

It has had many adaptations and different variations of the legends exists. Here in this article, we are trying to focus mostly on the folktale the stage plays and books are based on.

This old Japanese ghost stories called Kaidan (怪談,) meaning “strange, mysterious, rare, or bewitching apparition” and “talk” or “recited narrative“. In its broadest sense, kaidan refers to any ghost story or horror story, but it has an old-fashioned ring to it that carries the connotation of Edo period Japanese folktales.

The type of storytelling was especially popular in the Edo period with parlor games like Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai that focused in telling ghost stories.

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The Banchō Sarayashiki tale is one of Japan’s three most famous ghost stories, known as Nihon san dai kaidan. The other two being:

Japan’s Three Biggest Ghost Stories:

Botan Dōrō – Tales of the Peony Lantern

The Botan Dōrō or Tales of the Peony Lantern is a ghost story told since the Ming dynasty in China to today. Most popular through the Kaidan theater plays, it is now one of Japan’s most well known ghost stories.

Okiku and the Nine Plates

So what happened to the poor Okiku in the story of Banchō Sarayashiki that was so tragic and terrifying that it is still talked about today?

Banchō Sarayashiki: The print depicts the ghost of Okiku appearing by the well in which her master, Aoyama Tessan, murdered her.
From the Thirty-six Ghosts series by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi 1890.

There once was a servant Okiku working for a samurai named Aoyama Tessan in his mansion in Japan. Okiku was a beautiful girl and Aoyama, her master fell in love in her, and told her he wanted to marry her. However she did not feel the same and had to refuse his advances again and again. Her master started to grow tired and angry at her refusals. To make her follow his will he made a plan to trick her.

The family had at that time, ten precious Delft plates, a type of glazed porcelain. Very valuable and pretty. Losing one of them would be a crime punished by death. As a servant, Okiku was in charge of taking care of these plates and she knew very well the consequences if she messed up.

The master of the house knew this as well and used this and he tricked her, thinking she had lost one of them by hiding it.

Okiku counted, and recounted the nine plates, over and over again. But it was never enough. She could’t find the tenth plate and she went to her master, pleading for forgiveness. He said he would overlook the mistake she thought she had done, if she only became his lover. But to his surprise she refused, again. And Aoyama couldn’t take no for an answer.

Enraged, he threw her down a well were she died. In some version, she threw herself down the well to escape the torment from her master. In either cases, she died in that well. Perhaps quickly, hitting the stone walls, perhaps slowly, drowning in the dark water.

It is said she became an onryō, a vengeful spirit, back for revenge of those who wronged her. The ghost of Okiku tormented her murderer, every night, rising from the well and coming up to the mansion again, making him go insane in the end. Okiku was still counting the nine plates, one by one. Only reaching nine everytime, then making a terrible shriek when she again missed the tenth plate.

Read Also: The Ghosts of Japan

According to legends, an onryō is very difficult to get rid of. In this case, no one built a shrine in her honor to appease the spirit, however, some say that a Buddhist monk or a neighbor appeased the ghost by shouting ten to her, making her believe all of the plates were finally there, but then again— Some says she still haunts the castle she used to work in, unable to ever move on.

Read more about the Onryō

Onryō — the Vengeful Japanese Spirit

In many cultures, ghosts are put in different categories. Such is the case with Onryō (怨霊 onryō,) It basically means “vengeful spirit” or “wrathful spirit” in Japanese and is a mythological spirit of vengeance from Japanese folklore. They also have ghosts, called yurei, but these differ in the will of the ghost. As opposed to…

Banchō Sarayashiki Stage Play Adaptation

In some versions of the tale it is the mistress of the manor that breaks one of the dishes making Okiku commits suicide because of the mistress torment because she is jealous of Okiku. Similar to the other versions, Okiku is heard counting the nine plates, but in this version it is the mistress who goes insane and dies.

The Banchō Sarayashiki story was first seen as a bunraku, a type of puppet show, way back in 1741, based on the legend of the Manor of the Dishes and the poor servant. It was then turned into a kabuki play. But perhaps the most popular adaption of the legend is a play written in 1916 by Okamoto Kido, a modern version were the horror elements of the tale was turned into a psychological drama between the two characters.

Read More: All our ghost stories from Japan

Today the most famous adaption of this legend though is The Ring franchise with the vengeful spirit Sadako climbing out from the well to haunt the living and get her revenge.

The Okiku Insect Haunting the Wells in Japan

The haunting of Okiku’s ghost told in the Banchō Sarayashiki story, have been widely reported on for centuries, so exactly when it started to circulate as a ghost story before getting on the stage is unclear. Today the image of the young girl haunting and ascending from a well is such an iconic image.

Haunting the Wells: Illustration of the “Okiku insect” from Ehon Hyaku Monogatari.

But her haunting the wells in Japan was a well known motief long before the rise of J-Horror, and much of it was actually because of actual events in the 1700s.

A thing about these types of vengeful spirits like the onryō in Asia is their supposed forces to affect more than the ones who hurt them.

Vengeful ghosts often got blamed when there were peculiar natural disasters, accidents or even illnesses that could be linked to the ghost stories in some way. This was the case with the haunting of Okiku in the Banchō Sarayashiki.

All back in 1795 the old wells in Japan got a larvae infestation that were blamed on the ghost of Okiku. It was later known as the “Okiku insect” (お菊虫, okiku mushi).

This larva that was actually a type of butterfly larva called Chinese Windmill, covered with thin threads making it look as though it had been bound, was widely believed to be a reincarnation of Okiku when it covered the old wells and became a part of the legend of the Banchō Sarayashiki.

People in Japan that had heard and believed in the ghost story thought for a long time that the infestation was a reincarnation of Okiku and the cause of the infestation.

Haunting The Himeji Castle

Most of the legends claim that the hauntings of the Banchō Sarayashiki legend are in Edo (Tokyo). But there is a claim that the location of where it happened, is at the beautiful Himeji Castle, one of the biggest sightseeing places in Japan. It is claimed as the location in the Banchō Sarayashiki retelling in Ningyo Joruri’s version of the play. According to the legends, she is not th only ghost that are supposed to haunt the place.

The location: One of the stage adaption places the legend of Banchō Sarayashiki is at the wonderful Himeji Castle and the well on the castle ground known as Okiku Well attracts tourists as well as the beautiful white castle and cherry blossoms does. Photo by Nien Tran Dinh on Pexels.com

One the spots to see at Himeji Castle is the Okiku-Ido, or the Okiku Well were her ghost still lingers. There is also a well in the garden of the Canadian embassy in Tokyo, supposedly built on land bought from the Aoyama family, that claims this is the well she died in. In both versions though, the story is the same:

At night, Okiku comes out from the well to count the nine plates. One plate, two plate …’ ‘Nine plate, … one is missing …’ she goes. According to the some variations to the ghost story, you will die if you stay to the end with her reaching the tenth plate. If you manage to flee before her reaching the seventh, you may live, although you may lose your mind.

Read More: The story of Okiku and more in: The Ghosts Of the Haunted Himeji Castle In Japan

What is even more creepy is that this exact well fount at Himeji Castle to this day has bars all over it as some type of security measurement. Keeping the tourist out. Or.. perhaps keeping something in?

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References:

Ghost Story of Okiku – artelino

https://www.japanese-wiki-corpus.org/culture/Sarayashiki%20(The%20Haunted%20Plate%20House).html

Bancho Sarayashiki: Okiku And The Nine Plates (Ep. 25)

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Sharpshooters hunting

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A ranger was patrolling alone in the car. It had been a quiet night, and not a single soul was out. No hikers getting lost, no campers in need. He hadn’t seen anyone his whole watch. He was sipping his coffee, and watching the night sky over the beautiful forest.

Suddenly, his peace is over. Voices on his radio is screeching, a machine like sound, covering over the human voice. Thinking it is just a bad signal and that his colleagues’ is trying to reach him, he picks up the radio. He waves it around, cursing and hoping they soon will get some better ones to their work place. These things never work as they should.

When he holds it out, the voice manages to pierce through. The voice is weak, the signal flaking, almost a whisper. He listens intently, it’s not his colleague.

“West,” he hears, before it fades away again. He turns it to get a better signal. A series of numbers follows.

Coordinates! That must be it.There must be hunters hunting nearby. They’ve had troubles with that before. He calls it in.

“Hi Jimmy. I picked up something on the radio. Might be hunters. I’ll go check them out. Of west from where I am now.”

He can hear Jimmy thinking at the other end.

“You sure you want to go alone in? I’ll be there in a couple of hours max.”

“Yeah, it’s fine. Probably just Earl and his boys, trying to be smart.”

“Heh, yeah, must be. Crazy Earl. Smart, he’s not.”

“Haha, no. Well, see ya in a bit.”

So he gets out of the car and start walking towards were he thinks it can be. As he moves through the dark forest, he can make out low voices, speaking in a muffled sound, trying to make as little sound as possible. He is getting closer and can see faint lights in the distance. Now, he’s got them. Red handed, finally.

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A sudden shot in the dark is heard, and he throws himself on the ground. Shocked, he is too frozen to scream out. Enraged voices are heard, a big commotion is in the works. Too much for small prey? He wonders. Figures it’s best to just stay still, wait for backup.

He signals back to his colleague. No words, just clicking. Code for get more backups. Hours, it seems like, he lies there, the voices dying down, only the wind in the bushes, the howling from the trees is alive in the forest now. And he lies there, perfectly still. Not moving a muscle. This is not crazy Earl. This is something more.

Familiar voices finally breaks through the silence. Moving lights from flashlights and the shouting of his whole team is heard through the forest. He doesn’t get up before seeing Jimmy in the darkness.

“Thank God, Jimmy!” he says, getting too his feet. Jimmy grabs him, holding him tight. Not the reaction for the back up call.

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“Jesus, I’m fine. Jimmy, calm down.”

“Calm down?” Holy fu- You don’t know?”

“Don’t know what?” He asks. Jimmy is white as sheet, trembling the ranger notices. He’s never seen him tremble.

“I brought the police. They found a body.”

“What?”

“Holy, I thought it was you, I just. God, I’m glad to see you.”

“A body? Where?”

“Just over here. They are digging it up now,” Jimmy says. The lone ranger is led back to the clearing were the police and the rangers have set up camp. A police officer is approaching them. She takes off her gloves when she stops in front of them.

“Hey, you the ranger that called it in?”

The ranger look over her shoulder. In a shallow grave they have dug out a body. A white sheet is covering it.

“Gunshot?” he asks, not answering the question. He is too shaken to focus. The police officer nods. She looks at him, and how disheveled he look,s having been on the ground for who know how long.

“And the shooters? Did you find the shooters?” he asks. Now they just look confused.

“What do you mean?”

“The shooters. I heard them, not too long ago.”

She exchanges looks with Jimmy. He looks at me, takes his shoulder.

“Dude. We found no one,” he says. The police officer takes another step towards him.

“This person has been dead for a long time now. There is nothing but a skeleton left.”

The ranger leaves them there. He walks over to where the body, or skeleton is being carried away. He checks his GPS. Right were they are now, is the same coordinates that he heard over the radio not so long ago.

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