212 



the top of a high tree or on the eaves of a temple, and which 

 looks like . a ball of fire. The so-called sUranu-bi ( ^ ^ )!C > 

 "unknown fire") is the same '. 



More details about the Yotsukura light are to be found in the 

 Td-d kiko ^, which says that it moves, floating on the water, 

 from the sea along the Kara ado river up to the valley brooks. 

 At the foot of Mount Akai-dake it flies up and is soon seen 

 hanging between the branchesof big crypto merias, till it disappears 

 into the depths of the wood, continually followed by other lights, 

 in an endless row, from evening till daybreak. In bright moonshine 

 the lights are small, but in dark nights they are big like fire- 

 flies or torches. A strange thing is that they are only visible 

 from the so-called Enseki (Swallow-stone) on a projecting part 

 of the mountain. The author calls it inkioq ( ^ jiC > Yin-&te), 

 an expression borrowed from Chinese books, and compares it 

 with the "Sacred Lights" (p 'j^) and the « Cold Flames" ( ^ ^), 

 mentioned by Chinese authors. 



§ 10. The lights of Ushijiina, Ishidozan and Kurikara- 



In the last night of the year — a time when many dragon- 

 lanterns were said to appear, as the above legends have taught 

 us — three strange lights used to arise from differents spots 

 near the island TJshijima and to join into one mass which flew 

 to the "Dragon-lantern pine tree" of Asahizan Jonichiji, a Bud- 

 dhist temple at Hirai, a little place in Etchii province, Himi 

 district, and seen hanging between its branches ^. 



It was also a dragon-lantern which the Buddhist priest Nansan 

 saw on an old pine tree, when he crossed Mount Ishidozan in 

 the year 806 ; Amida Nyorai appeared there, seated on a wonderful 

 cloud. Nansan built a Buddhist temple on the spot and placed 

 Amida Nyorai's image in it. Four centuries later, when the 

 Emperor Juntoku (1211 — 1221) went to Sado province and his 

 ship was tossed on the waves by a severe storm, all of a sudden 

 a dragon-lantern arose in the South on the same spot and served' 



1 Oshu-banashi, ^ >|>j>| '^ ^ ^^^ Onchi'shosho i'^^ ^^), Vol. XI, 

 p. 50, 52. 



2 W A ^ ^> written in 1760 by.NAGAKUBO Genshu, "M ^ '^ ^ ^ , 

 and quoted by Kubihara RyS-an, ^ j^ ||p ^ (1793—1870) in his Ryu-m 

 zuihitsu, Mn ^;'|^ ^ffi 1 written in 1819;Hyakkasetsunn, Vol. ^S ~K — '. . p. 487. 



3 SanshU kidan kohen (1779) (cf., above, p. 174, note 1), Ch. VII, p. 990. 



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