Scary Stories From Around The World

Aizuwakamatsu no Yurie- The Yurei of Aizuwakamatsu

*not mine*

Long ago, in the town of Aizuwakamatsu (modern day Fukushima prefecture) lived a man named Iyo lived with his wife. One night the yurei of a woman appeared in their house.

At first the dead woman—who was completely unknown to Iyo—appeared outside in the garden. She knocked on the closed door and called out the name of Iyo's wife, who was sleeping beside him. Now, Iyo's wife was a no-nonsense type of woman. When she heard the yurei calling her name, she shouted back "Who the hell are you and what do you want?" There was no answer other than the yurei again calling her name.

Being prepared for such a thing, Iyo's wife reached into a special box she kept near their futon and withdrew an ofuda. The ofuda was a strip of paper, prepared by a local monk, with a charm of exorcism against ghosts. Iyo's wife hurled the ofuda at the yurei, who disappeared like smoke blown away by a fan.

However, this yurei was not finished with Iyo and his wife. The next night she appeared in the kitchen, coming out of the fires of the burning stove. After that, she was in the garden again, walking the perimeter and pounding a bell with a wooden mallet. This went on for four days.

The wife knew when she was outmatched, and went to the local shrine to enlist the help of the kami and Buddhist spirits to protect their house. She reverently prayed to anyone who would listen, and as a result their house was quiet for the night. The yurei did not appear.

It was the eighth day since the haunting began. Apparently the protection Iyo's wife was good for one night only. This time the woman's yurei appeared directly in their bedroom, hovering over them near their pillows. Slowly she made her way to the foot of the bed, where she began to caress Iyo's wife's feet with her cold, dead hands.

That was enough for Iyo and his wife, who promptly moved out of the house. The ghostly woman remained a mystery; No one in the Iyo household had ever seen her before, or knew what she wanted, or why she had appeared.