186 



disappointed lover was said to have drowned himself, and his 

 passion (^ ;^, shunen) was believed to have condensed into 

 the form of a white dragon (with other words, his soul, on 

 account of its passionate condition at the time of his death, 

 was reincarnated in a dragon). This was in Hotta's days 

 (eighteenth century) an old tale, and the lake had become ten times 

 narrower than before, so that the dragon was no longer supposed 

 to live in the water, but in a so-called "dragon-hole" {ryu-hutsu, 

 n%'M) iii^<^er the ground, where "dragon-vapours", or "dragon- 

 breath", (^^) used to rise as a sign of the- demon's presence 

 (these are Chinese ideas). In the beginning of the Anei era 

 (1772 — 1780) people who crossed a neighbouring ferry of the 

 river which flows into the lake, saw a long, white monster 

 swimming from the lake into the river mouth. When it was 

 at the bottom of the- stream the water became quite white. 

 Sometimes the dragon showed his snow-white back, but not his 

 head or tail. Some people, who had seen his head, which seldom 

 was visible, said that it was square. After having enjoyed himself 

 in swimming along the coast for one day, he disappeared. 

 This dragon was said to have lived in that vicinity for a long 

 time, and as he was called "the white man" ( ^ J^ , shiro-otoko) , 

 HoTTA supposes him to be the same person who once drowned 

 himself and took this shape after having been deceived by his 

 sweetheart, "the white girl", and was afterwards living under 

 the ground because the lake had become too narrow. As he could 

 not immerse the land and destroy the fields, he from time to 

 time simply made an excursion to the neighbouring sea coast. 

 At the same ferry there was a creature called "shiga", which 

 stretched itself and checked the boats when the snow began to 

 melt; this was also some "breath" (^), probably, says Hotta, 

 the same "dragon-breath" which was examined by a wonder- 

 fully daring man during the Keicho era (1596 — 1614) according 

 to the work entitled " Chugw'aiden''' '. ' / 



According to a modern work, the Nihon sliukyo fuzoku shi 

 mentioned above ^, there is jn Kasahara village, Totomi province, 

 a pond called "Sakura ga ike", "Cherry-tree Pond". It is the 

 abode of a huge dragon, to whom those who have a special wish 

 pray on the middle day of higan {^^^, "yonder shore", a 

 period of seven days in either equinox; the middle day is the 



■I pb ^l» /^ (time and author?). 

 2 P. 117, note 1; p. 204. 



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