Our karate sensei, Mr. Miyaji, once told us a ghost story, which he emphasized was true. As a young man growing up in Japan, he and his friends traveled to Shimonseki, the southernmost point of Honshū, to visit the site of the famous sea battle of Dan-No-Ura, which took place in 1185. The general Minamoto no Yoshitsune, along with his clan, defeated the Taira clan, where all members perished, including the boy emperor, Antoku.
He and his friends walked as close as they could to the waters where the famous sea battle took place. Soon, it was time to leave, but Mr. Miyaji mentioned that they noticed one of their friends, whom he referred to as Jiro, had a female companion with him. He and his friends thought it was proper to give Jiro and his new female companion their space, and so they walked ahead of them, and by the end of the day, they'd taken the train home separately.
Sensei said that after that, every time they saw Jiro and his girlfriend, he did not look happy. Despite her beauty, she carried a horrible odor about her. Then, one day, Jiro was gone. In fact, as the sensei told us, Jiro wouldn't be seen for the rest of the year. The following school year, Jiro was sitting in class with everyone else, not looking unhappy or helpless at all. When sensei and his friends asked Jiro about where he'd been, he said he'd been in a monastery for the whole year, mired in prayer and meditation. When asked why this happened, Jiro said it was because of his girlfriend. That day on their jaunt to Shimonoseki, at Dan-No-Ura, he saw her standing there and noticed how beautiful she was. She smiled at him.
"My mistake," Jiro told Sensei and the rest of his friends, "was that I smiled back. She was a Nure Onago, a spirit. A spirit who mourns the death of her husband lost in battle, particularly sailors lost at sea or who drown at sea during a battle. If you smile at a spirit like this, she becomes attached to you, and she won't ever let you go. I had to go to a monastery for a year and do nothing but pray and meditate. The only way to get rid of an Nure Onago is to ignore it. It took a year, but I finally got rid of her."
"Dan-No-Ura," Sensei said. "The famous battle, where the Taira clan drowned. That spirit must have been one of the grieving widows."
"Even today," Sensei told us. "When I think about that time with my friend Jiro, I get creepy goosebumps. It could have happened to any of us, but it happened to Jiro, and guess what? Jiro's last name was Taira."
credit @matthewmeyer. @yokai.com
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