A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.

Overview

Hanagaki Baishū falls in love with the unknown writer of a poem-strip blown to him near Benten’s shrine at the Amadera in Kyoto. During a devotional vigil he witnesses a supernatural page instruct an elderly marriage divinity, the Old-Man-under-the-Moon, to help him. The old man binds a crimson cord around Baishū, burns its other end and summons a young woman. She first departs with him, but Baishū meets her again outside the grounds, and she enters his home as his wife.

The couple live happily from autumn into winter. She writes, paints, arranges flowers, makes music and manages the household, yet says nothing about her family; neighbours seem unaware of her presence. A stranger subsequently invites Baishū into his house after dreams in which Benten has identified him as the intended husband of the stranger’s daughter. When introduced, Baishū finds that the daughter is the same person as his wife. The narrator resolves the paradox by distinguishing the soul who already married him from the body he is now to marry.

Hearn explicitly identifies gaps in the ending: the account does not tell how the embodied girl experienced these months or what finally happened to her double. His Japanese friend’s explanation that the spirit passed into the writing and was evoked from the poem-strip is a subsequent interpretation, not an additional narrated event. The source is Otogi-Hyaku-Monogatari. This entry treats a particular living spirit-double within a Buddhist and Shinto devotional story, not a dead bride or a separate species of women.

Visible double of a living womanLives with Baishū before bodily introductionFinal disposition left unexplained
01

Origins & earliest records

Japanese written tales retold in English by Lafcadio Hearn

02

Records & interpretation

Complete story, ending and all attached notes read in the identified historical edition.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

  1. 01

    Shadowings

    Lafcadio Hearn · 1919

    V, The Sympathy of Benten, pp.41–54; Boston, Little, Brown and Company,1919; copyright1900

Family & connections

A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.

Primary records and illustrations

Direct historical retelling

Lafcadio Hearn, Shadowings (copyright1900; inspected1919 edition)

Stories from Strange Books. V, The Sympathy of Benten, pp.41–54

Complete story and every attached note read; retained 34215.html and hearn-shadowings.txt. Personal manifestation and ending distinctions preserved; no inferred original Japanese text or generic anatomy.

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References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

  1. Historical literary retellingHearn, Shadowings, V, The Sympathy of Benten, pp.41–54Research access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.

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