174 



A similar pond is spoken of in the Sanshu kidan kohen '. An 

 evil snake {akuja, ^ ^"^ ) was believed to have there her abode 

 and to commit all kinds of strange things. When one stood on 

 the bank of the pond and looked over the water, such a dreary 

 wind was blowing, that most people fled home. If one prayed 

 there for rain, his prayer was usually heard. The author was in 

 doubt whether a terrible looking woman, who one night appeared 

 on a neighbouring bridge to a man returning from a festival in 

 .a slightly tipsy condition, was the snake of the pond or a trans- 

 formed wind-tanuki ^ She stood on the balustrade of the bridge, 

 binding up her hair and laughing loudly with open mouth, so 

 that all her black teeth were visible. Her malicious face was 

 square and very ugly, and it seemed as if she had but one leg. 

 When people approached with torches, she flew away. Another 

 time she attacked a man who had also enjoyed a good cup of 

 sake and who was on his way home in the dead of night. She 

 flung him from the road into the grass and then disappeared, 

 but the poor fellow was ill for a whole month. As the water of 

 the pond was flowing around the village and under this bridge, 

 it is possible, says Hotta, that the WDman was the snake of the 

 pond, although her body, which she moved so easily in flying 

 away, did not remind one of a dragon-snake (^| i'fe) (which 

 always wants a cloud as vehicle). The name of the pond, 

 "Shiroshuto (^|| A) ^^ i^e", or "Pond of the White and 

 Ugly Person", had perhaps something to do with the transfor- 

 mation of the snake into an ugly woman. 



§ 9. stirring up the dragons by throwing iron or filth 

 into their ponds. 



If an iron utensil was thrown into the Rope-pond, mentioned 

 in § 8, suddenly darkness covered the land and a hurricane 

 devastated the ricefields. For this reason the villagers strictly 

 forbade other people to approach the pond without a special reason. 

 It was said that greedy merchants, who had bought rice, threw 

 metal shavings into the pond in order to cause storm and rain, 

 which would destroy the crop and thus make the price of the 

 rice run up ^. This way of stirring up the dragons by means of 



^ H ^H ^ ^ ^ 1^' ^""^" '" 1'^'^^ ^y ^^^ ®^"^ author; Ch. V, p. 952. 

 2- JH ^18, kaze-danuki, cf. my treatise on "The Fox and Badger in Japanese 



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