eLBe wrote:My fav comic moment when the aunts house is burnt down, the villages come running to look and the nephew standing there dressed as a geisha
Furisode from In Ghostly Japan by Laifcado Hearn
Recently, while passing through a little street tenanted cheifly by dealers in old wares, I noticed a furisode, or long-sleeved robe, of the rich purple tint called murasaki, hanging before one of the shops. It was a robe of such as might have been worn by a lady of rank in the time of the Tokagawa. I stopped to look at the five crests upon it; and in the same moment there came to my recollection this legend of a similar robe said to have once caused the destruction of Yedo.
Nearly two hundred and fifty years ago, the daughter of a rich merchant of the city of the Shoguns, while attending some temple-festival, perceived in the crowd a young samuri of remarkable beauty, and immediatly fell in love with him. Unhappily for her, he disappeared in the press before she could learn through her attendants who he was or whence he had come. But his image remained vivid in her memory, - even to the least detail of his costume. The holiday attire then worn by samuri youths was scarecly less brilliant than that of young girls; and the upper dress of the handsome stranger had seemed wonderfully beautiful to the enamoured maiden. She fancied that by wearing a robe of like quality and color, bearing the same crest, she might be able to attract his notice on some future occasion.
Accordingly she had such a robe made, with very long sleeves, according to the fashion of the period; and she prized it greatly. She wore it whenever she went out; and when at hom she would suspend it in her room, and try to imagine the form of her unknown beloved within it. Sometimes she would pass hours before it, - dreaming and weeping by turns. And she would pray to the gods and the Buddhas that she might win the young man's affection, - often repeating the invocation of the Nichiren sect: Namu myo ho renge kyo!
But she never saw the youth again; and she pined with longing for him, and sickened, and died, and was buried. After her burial, the long-sleeved robe that she had so much prized was give to the buddhist temple of which her family were parishioners. It is an old custom to thus dispose of the garments of the dead.
The priest was able to sell the robe at a good price; for it was a costly silk, and bore no trace of the tears that had fallen upon it. It was bought by a girl of about the same age as the dead lady. She wore it only one day. Then she fell sick, and began to act strangely, - crying out that she was haunted by the vision of a beautiful young man. and that for the love of him she was going to die. And within a little while she died; and the long-sleeved robe was a secong time presented to the temple.
Again the priest sold it; and again it became the property of a young girl, who wore it only once. Then she also sickened, and talked of a beautiful shadow, and died, and was buried. And the robe was given a third time to the temple; and the priest wondered and doubted.
Nevertheless he ventured to sell the luckless garment once more. Once more it was purchased by a girl and once more worn; and the wearer pined and died. And the robe was given a fouth time to the temple.
Then the priest felt sure that there was some evil influence at work; and he told his alcolytes to make a fire in the temple-cout, and to burn the robe.
So they made a fire, into which the robe was thrown. But as the silk began to burn, there suddenly appeared upon it dazzling characters of flame, - the characters of the invocation, Namu myo ho renge kyo; - and these, one by one, leaped like great sparks to the temple roof; and the temple took fire.
srebme from the burning temple presently dropped upon neighboring roofs; and the whole street was soon ablaze. Then a sea-wind, rising, blew destruction into further streets; and the conflagration spread from street to street, and from district into disctrict, till nearly the whole of the city was consumed. And this calamity, which occured upon the eighteenth day of the first month of the first year of Meireki (1655), is still remembered in Tokyo as the Furisode-Kwaji, - the Great Fire of teh Long-Sleeved Robe.
According to a story-book called Kibun-Daijin, the name of the girl who caused the robe to be made was O-Same; and she was the daughter of Hikoyemon, a wine-merchant of Hyakusho-machi, in the district of Azabu. Beacuause of her beauty she was also called Azabu-Komachi, or the Komachi of Azabu. The same book says that the temple of the tradition was a Nichiren temple called Honmyoji, in the district of Hongo; and that the crest upon the robe was a kikyo-flower. But there are many different versions of the story; and I distrust the Kibun-Daijin because it asserts that the beautiful samuri was not really a man, but a transformed dragon, or water serpent, that used to inhabit the lake at Uyeno,- Shinobazu-no-Ike.
So yeah - Bottom right is the kikyo crest..
