Other visitors are beetles of divers colours, and a sort of small roach called goki-kaburi, signifying 'one whose head is covered with a bowl.' It is alleged that the goki-kaburi likes to eat human eyes, and is therefore the abhorred enemy of Ichibata-Sama—Yakushi-Nyorai of Ichibata,—by whom diseases of the eye are healed. To kill the goki- kaburi is consequently thought to be a meritorious act in the sight of this Buddha. Always welcome are the beautiful fireflies (hotaru), which enter quite noiselessly and at once seek the darkest place in the house, slow-glimmering, like sparks moved by a gentle wind. They are supposed to be very fond of water; wherefore children sing to them this little song:
Hotaru koe midzu nomasho;
Achi no midzu wa nigaizo;
Kochi no midzu wa amaizo. [32]
A pretty grey lizard, quite different from some which usually haunt the garden, also makes its appearance at night, and pursues its prey along the ceiling. Sometimes an extraordinarily large centipede attempts the same thing, but with less success, and has to be seized with a pair of fire-tongs and thrown into the exterior darkness. Very rarely, an enormous spider appears. This creature seems inoffensive. If captured, it will feign death until certain that it is not watched, when it will run away with surprising swiftness if it gets a chance. It is hairless, and very different from the tarantula, or fukurogumo. It is called miyamagumo, or mountain spider. There are four other kinds of spiders common in this neighbourhood: tenagakumo, or 'long-armed spider;' hiratakumo, or 'flat spider'; jikumo, or 'earth spider'; and totatekumo, or 'doorshutting spider.' Most spiders are considered evil beings. A spider seen anywhere at night, the people say, should be killed; for all spiders that show themselves after dark are goblins. While people are awake and watchful, such creatures make themselves small; but when everybody is fast asleep, then they assume their true goblin shape, and become monstrous.
Sec. 13
The high wood of the hill behind the garden is full of bird life. There dwell wild uguisu, owls, wild doves, too many crows, and a queer bird that makes weird noises at night-long deep sounds of hoo, hoo. It is called awamakidori or the 'millet-sowing bird,' because when the farmers hear its cry they know that it is time to plant the millet. It is quite small and brown, extremely shy, and, so far as I can learn, altogether nocturnal in its habits.
But rarely, very rarely, a far stranger cry is heard in those trees at night, a voice as of one crying in pain the syllables 'ho-to-to-gi-su.' The cry and the name of that which utters it are one and the same, hototogisu.
It is a bird of which weird things are told; for they say it is not really a creature of this living world, but a night wanderer from the Land of Darkness. In the Meido its dwelling is among those sunless mountains of Shide over which all souls must pass to reach the place of judgment. Once in each year it comes; the time of its coming is the end of the fifth month, by the antique counting of moons; and the peasants, hearing its voice, say one to the other, 'Now must we sow the rice; for the Shide-no-taosa is with us.' The word taosa signifies the head man of a mura, or village, as villages were governed in the old days; but why the hototogisu is called the taosa of Shide I do not know. Perhaps it is deemed to be a soul from some shadowy hamlet of the Shide hills, whereat the ghosts are wont to rest on their weary way to the realm of Emma, the King of Death.
Its cry has been interpreted in various ways. Some declare that the hototogisu does not really repeat its own name, but asks, 'Honzon kaketaka?' (Has the honzon [33] been suspended?) Others, resting their interpretation upon the wisdom of the Chinese, aver that the bird's speech signifies, 'Surely it is better to return home.' This, at least is true: that all who journey far from their native place, and hear the voice of the hototogisu in other distant provinces, are seized with the sickness of longing for home.
Only at night, the people say, is its voice heard, and most often upon the nights of great moons; and it chants while hovering high out of sight, wherefore a poet has sung of it thus:
Hito koe wa.
Tsuki ga naitaka
Hototogisu! [34]