The Holy Man of Mount Kōya — Summary and Characters
A bewitching woman in a hill house
- Author
- Izumi Kyōka
- Published
- February 1900
- First appeared in
- Shin Shōsetsu
- Form
- Novel
- Genres
- Horror
- Fantasy
- Setting
- Gifu
- Fukui
- Length
- 36,052 characters
- Reading time
- About 1 hr 12 min
- Orthography
- Modern script and kana
About this work
The fantastical story that made Izumi Kyōka's name, published in the magazine Shin Shōsetsu in February 1900. It is framed as a tale told to a young traveller by Sōchō, a monk of Mount Kōya met on a train, about an uncanny experience of his youth. The world it conjures — an isolated house in the mountains ruled by a bewitching woman — is rendered in luxuriant classical prose, and it is still regarded as the summit of Kyōka's romanticism.
Summary
"I," sharing a train, falls in with Sōchō, a travelling monk from Mount Kōya, and at an inn at Tsuruga is told of an experience of his youth. Sōchō, still in his years of training, had turned off onto the old road over Amō Pass on his way from Hida into Shinshū, following a medicine seller from Toyama who had gone that way; and pressing on through a ruined road, over ground swarming with snakes and leeches, he came to a house standing alone in the mountains. There lived a woman of a beautiful and uncanny charm, an idiot man whose legs would not hold him, and an old fellow who called the woman his young mistress. When she rubbed him down in a mountain stream and he saw her naked body, Sōchō knew a sensuality and a terror he could not name. The next morning, at a waterfall near the village, he heard from the old man that the woman has the power to breathe on the men who court her and turn them into beasts, and that the medicine seller had already been made a horse and sold; and Sōchō, taking fright, ran headlong down the mountain.
Characters
- I The young traveller who becomes the hearer of the tale
- Sōchō A travelling monk of Mount Kōya, who tells of the uncanny experience of his youth
- The woman The bewitching beauty who lives in the lonely house in the deep mountains. The daughter of a doctor from the village below, she has the power to turn men into beasts
- The idiot boy The man the woman cares for, whose legs were left useless by the doctor's failed operation
- The old man The old fellow who comes and goes at the lonely house. He sells the men who have been turned into beasts as horses, and tells Sōchō what the woman is
Chapter-by-chapter synopsis
The app covers this work chapter by chapter (full text in the app).
- 1. About This Work
- 2. Main Characters
- 3. Main Supporting Characters
- 4. A Chance Companion — A Night at the Inn in Tsuruga
- 5. Toward Amō Pass — A Path of Snakes and a Forest of Leeches
- 6. The Woman of the Lonely House — Bathing in the Mountain Stream
- 7. The Horse, the Evening Meal, and the Midnight Specters
- 8. The Meoto Falls — The Old Man Reveals the Truth
- 9. Key Motifs and Foreshadowing
The opening (original text)
"There was no need to spread out the map compiled by the general staff and look at it again, I thought; but the road was so bad that it was oppressive even to touch the thing, and lifting the sleeve of my travelling robe I pulled out the folded book with its cover on. It was a byway through deep mountains crossing from Hida into Shinshū, and there was not a single stand of trees where one might stop and rest; there were mountains to right and left, and when there was a peak that looked near enough to touch by stretching out a hand, another peak rode upon it and a summit came down over that, so that not a flying bird was to be seen and not the shape of a cloud.
The Holy Man of Mount Kōya by Izumi Kyōka (Aozora Bunko)
The ending (original text)
I had been standing there like something drained, and my soul came back into my body. As soon as I had made my bow to her I gripped my staff, tipped my little hat, turned on my heel and ran headlong down; and by the time I reached the village a squall was on the mountain — rain heavy enough, I think, that the carp the old man had brought the woman would have reached the lonely house alive." The holy man of Kōya offered no particular gloss or teaching on this; but when we parted the next morning and he set off over the mountain through the snow, and I watched him go with regret, the figure of the holy man climbing the slope, higher and higher through the fluttering snow, looked exactly as though he were riding on a cloud.
The Holy Man of Mount Kōya by Izumi Kyōka (Aozora Bunko)
Famous passages
I told myself there was no need to unfold the General Staff Office map again, but the road was so wearisome that even to touch anything felt stifling; still, I lifted the sleeve of my traveling robe and drew out the folding map in its cover.
The opening in which a traveling priest begins to tell of crossing the mountains of Hida. It opens a representative work of Kyōka's fantastical literature, colored by uncanny wonders deep in the mountains and the vision of a beautiful woman.
A blood-sucking creature, shaped like a warty cucumber, with smooth, murky black skin banded in brown — this here, is a leech.
A scene in which the traveling priest, deep in the mountains of Hida, finds his whole body covered in leeches. The clinging quality of the description heightens the dread of the uncanny events still to come.
Read the original
The original Japanese text is available at Aozora Bunko, and the app downloads the same text for its vertical-text reader.
More by this author
- Onna keizu January 1907
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- Dogra Magra January 1935