Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange ThingsLafcadio Hearn
Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things
Lafcadio Hearn
Stories
Book language: English
116 pages
"Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things" is Lafcadio Hearn's collection of Japanese ghost stories, folk legends, and short essays on insects. It retells tales of the supernatural, strange encounters, and traditional beliefs in atmospheric prose. It is worth listening for its haunting folklore and its window into Japanese culture and imagination.
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Cover illustration generated by AI.
Text source: gutenberg.org · The work is in the public domain.
Opening of the book
KWAIDAN: Stories and Studies of Strange Things By Lafcadio Hearn
A Note from the Digitizer
On Japanese Pronunciation
Although simplified, the following general rules will help the reader unfamiliar with Japanese to come close enough to Japanese pronunciation.
There are five vowels: a (as in fAther), i (as in machIne), u (as in fOOl), e (as in fEllow), and o (as in mOle). Although certain vowels become nearly “silent” in some environments, this phenomenon can be safely ignored for the purpose at hand.
Consonants roughly approximate their corresponding sounds in
English, except for r, which is actually somewhere between r and l
(this is why the Japanese have trouble distinguishing between English r and l), and f, which is much closer to h.
The spelling “KWAIDAN” is based on premodern Japanese pronunciation; when Hearn came to Japan, the orthography reflecting this pronunciation was still in use. In modern Japanese the word is pronounced KAIDAN.
There are many ellipses in the text. Hearn often used them in this book; they do not represent omissions by the digitizer.
Author’s original notes are in brackets, those by the digitizer are in parentheses.
Contents INTRODUCTION KWAIDAN THE STORY OF MIMI-NASHI-HŌÏCHI OSHIDORI THE STORY OF O-TEI UBAZAKURA DIPLOMACY OF A MIRROR AND A BELL JIKININKI MUJINA ROKURO-KUBI A DEAD SECRET YUKI-ONNA THE STORY OF AOYAGI JIU-ROKU-ZAKURA THE DREAM OF AKINOSUKÉ RIKI-BAKA HI-MAWARI HŌRAI INSECT STUDIES BUTTERFLIES
MOSQUITOES ANTS Notes Illustrations BLOWING HER BREATH UPON HIM BUTTERFLY DANCE
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