Mysteries

Ghosts and spirits

• TaleMiyoshi, Hiroshima, Japan, 1749 to 1859

  The Inō mononoke roku: where the demon king's mallet came from

  In 1749 a demon king is said to have given a sixteen-year-old in Miyoshi a mallet. A comparison of four versions shows none in the text dated 1783.

  

• CaseShimoda, Izu, Japan, 1884 to 1891

  Kokkuri-san came ashore at Shimoda, or so Inoue Enryō heard

  In 1887 Inoue Enryō traced the kokkuri craze to an American ship at Shimoda, a story he dated to about 1884 in one book and about 1885 in the next.

  

• TaleHanyū, Shimōsa (now Jōsō, Ibaraki), Japan, 1672 to 1859

  Kasane's spirit left Hanyū village twice

  In 1672 a Shimōsa village freed a girl from Kasane's spirit with its own nenbutsu, and the spirit came back. Only then, the one account says, did Yūten come.

  

• TaleNew Mexico and Texas, 1629 to 1690

  The Lady in Blue had no name in 1630

  In 1630 the Jumano told the friars a young woman had preached to them, dressed like the nun in a portrait. Ágreda's name and the blue came later.

  

• CaseHermersdorf (Svobodné Heřmanice), Czechia, 1753 to 1768

  Hermersdorf's vampires were burned before Vienna sent a physician

  Maria Theresa's earliest letter we found on the Hermersdorf vampires is dated 8 February 1755, eight days after an executioner burned nineteen of the dead.

  

• TaleAdams, Robertson County, Tennessee, 1820 to 2017

  Andrew Jackson and the Bell Witch: one letter from 1894

  A 2008 federal listing says Andrew Jackson visited the Bell Witch Cave in 1819. The 1894 book behind the story sets his visit on a road and in a farmhouse.

  

• TaleChina, 1679 to 1985

  Before jiangshi hopped, they ran

  In the Qing stories behind the jiangshi, corpses run, grab and cling to trees. Only one of Yuan Mei's comes leaping, and the escorted dead of 1909 walked.

  

• TaleLeifeng Pagoda, Hangzhou, China, 975 to 2002

  Lady White Snake and the fall of Leifeng Pagoda

  When Hangzhou's Leifeng Pagoda fell in 1924, Lu Xun took the snake's side. In the oldest full version, from 1624, she is a python her husband helps seal away.

  

• TaleHimeji, Hyōgo, Japan, About 1577 to 1952

  How Okiku came to Himeji Castle’s well

  Himeji Castle shows visitors the well Okiku is said to lie in. The oldest version of her story has no Okiku, no plates and no well.

  

• CaseKisiljevo and Medveđa, Serbia, 1725 to 1732

  Plogojowitz and Paole: the vampire reports of 1725 and 1732

  In January 1732 Habsburg army surgeons had graves opened at Medveđa, cut the bodies open, and signed a report saying which dead were in a "vampire state".