Well here is a collection of my favorite ghost stories and myth's about the acient Japanese Gods. I hope that you find this as interesting as I do. Maybe the stories might even give you a cold chill :o) So turn off the lights and lets get started, but wait, maybe you should lock your door first. Hey wait a minute! That won't help cause ghost can come right through the door! hehe So lets get ready to hear some stories from Japan, here we go....

The child in the wash closet

Before I we begin the story, a little background is in order. Japanese toliets until the last decade or so, have been set flush with the ground in the 'squat' style. Though to most Westerners this is seen as awkward in removing cloths and other logistics, Japanese folk see it as a sanitary (no body contact with the toilet.). This style, called traditional, has been in early times a simple hole in the ground.]

The tale goes along the lines that a small child one day went to the wash closet ( it was simply a septic pit in the ground). She was very young and small and fell into the toilet. With no one to save her she died but was not to have a restful afterlife, possibly due to such an ignoble death.

Along the lines of the Bloody Mary fable, if you say the little girl's name three times while on the toilet, she will come out of the toilet and take you back down to join her in her lonely isolation and invaribly to your death.

Ringing Bell

This was related to me by a fellow teacher. When she was in her teens Maiko was taking a traditional Japanese bath, ofuro as it is called, which many Japanese soak in the hottest water they can stand to relax after a hard day. She was soaking around 2am in the morning and a faint ringing could be heard by her. Maiko looked in the direction of the ringing and saw a ghostly hand with an old fashioned Japanese bell. Scared to death, she closed her eyes and curled up into a fetal ball and smashed her hands over her ears to block it out. The sound became louder and louder and she could feel the presence directly over her head ringing the bell so loud it hurt. Then, suddenly, it just stopped. Since then Maiko has had a great fear of Ghosts

On the Akasaka Road, in Tokyo, there is a slope called Kii-no-kuni-zaka,
which means the Slope of the Province of Kii. I do not know why it is called the
Slope of the province of Kii. On one side of this slope you see an ancient moat,
deep and very wide, with high green banks rising up to some place of gardens;
and on the other side of the road extend the long and lofty walls of an imperial
palace. Before the era of street-lamps and jinrikishas, this neighborhood was very
lonesome after dark; and belated pedestrians would go miles out of their way rather
than mount the Kii-no-kuni-zaka, alone, after sunset. All because of a Mujina that used to walk there.

The last man who saw the Mujina was an old merchant of the Kyobashi
quarter, who died about thirty years ago. This is the story, as he told it:

One night, at a late hour, he was hurrying up the Kii-no-kuni-zaka, when he
perceived a woman crouching by the moat, all alone, and weeping bitterly. Fearing
that she intended to drown herself, he stopped to offer her any assistance or
consolation in his power. She appeared to be a slight and graceful person,
handsomely dressed; and her hair was arranged like that of a young girl of good
family. "O-jochu," he exclaimed, approaching her,---"O-jochu, do not cry like
that!... Tell me what the trouble is; and if there be any way to help you, I shall be
glad to help you." (He really meant what he said; for he was a very kind man.) But
she continued to weep,---hiding her face from him with one of her long sleeves.
"O-jochu," he said again, as gently as he could,---"please, please listen to me!
This is no place for a young lady at night! Do not cry, I implore you!---only tell
me how I may be of some help to you!" Slowly she rose up, but turned her back
to him, and continued to moan and sob behind her sleeve. He laid his hand lightly
upon her shoulder, and pleaded:---"O-jochu!---O-jochu!---O-jochu!... Listen to me,
just for one little moment!... O-jochu!--- O-jochu!"... Then that O-jochu turned
round, and dropped her sleeve, and stroked her face with her hand;--- and the
man saw that she had no eyes or nose or mouth,---and he screamed and ran away.
Up Kii-no-kuni-zaka he ran and ran; and all was black and empty before him.
On and on he ran, never daring to look back; and at last he saw a lantern, so far
away that it looked like the gleam of a firefly; and he made for it. It proved to be
only the lantern of an itinerant soba-seller, who had set down his stand by the
road-side; but any light and any human companionship was good after that
experience; and he flung himself down at the feet of the old soba-seller, crying
out, "Aa!---aa!!---aa!!!"

"Kore! Kore!" roughly exclaimed the soba-man. "Here! what is the
matter with you? Anybody hurt you?"
"No---nobody hurt me," panted the other,---"only... Aa!---aa!"...
"---Only scared you?" queried the peddler, unsympathetically. "Robbers?"
"Not robbers,---not robbers," gasped the terrified man... "I saw... I saw a
woman---by the moat;---and she showed me... Aa! I cannot tell you what
she showed me!"

"Hey! Was it anything like THIS that she showed you?" cried the soba-man,
stroking his own face---which therewith became like unto an Egg... And,
simultaneously, the light went out.

More stories of the Faceless Woman!

In one version of the story, a girl left her car and went into the restroom around midnight to put on fresh lipstick. In the mirror she saw a figure behind her with long hair and no face. She saw that the figure had no legs, only half a body. When the girl turned around, there was nobody behind her. The door slammed shut and locked as the poor girl screamed and fainted.

In another version reported, a woman went to the restroom. As
she entered, she noticed the place was occupied by another woman who was
standing in front of the mirror combing her long, beautiful hair. The first woman
came closer and spoke. The second woman turned slightly. She had no face. The 
first woman was so frightened she ended up in the hospital with a breakdown.

The spirit had black hair, according to an eye witness, and was combing her hair down in front of her face in the mirror. When she looked in the mirror, the black-haired asian woman combed her hair back, revealing that she had no eyes, no nose and no mouth---only a blank, featureless face.

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