# Japanese Gardens/Chapter 16

CHAPTER XVI
GARDEN FOLK-LORE AND LEGENDS—(II)
“Herbs and trees, stones and rocks, shall all enter into Nirvana.”
Buddhist Proverb
The Peach (Momo) has neither the popularity with the masses nor the high regard of the select few that the Plum and Cherry blossoms have. It is the favourite flower of the little girls’ festival, early in March, of which more elsewhere. Hideyoshi’s palace on Momo Yama (Peach Mountain), the most beautiful of any of the many beautiful palaces he built, was set about with Peach orchards, and how glad must have been the old warrior’s heart in the spring!
A favourite story of the Peach is that of Momotaro, a kind of Far Eastern version of Tom Thumb. An old woman (it always seems to be an old woman in these legends) was washing clothes on the bank of a stream, when she saw a magnificent Peach come floating along, which she charmed to the bank with a song. It was so unusually fine that she stopped her work and hurried home to take it to her ​old husband, who was away at his work. So she had to wait for his return, and then, when they had sufficiently admired the fruit, they prepared to eat it; but before they had time to cut it open it broke in two, and a tiny child stepped out of the middle of it, and informed them that the gods had sent him to be the son of their old age. The child grew up to years of discretion and developed into a model son; but at the age of fifteen he asked permission to go away on a long journey for the purpose of fighting and conquering a band of devils who had their stronghold on an island to the north-east of Japan. After some conversation the old man gave his consent, and Momotaro started off on his perilous journey. On his way he collected a little band of followers, a somewhat heterogeneous lot, consisting of a Dog, a Monkey, and a Pheasant, with whose assistance eventually he subdued and exterminated the demons, and returned in triumph loaded with treasure. He brought also with him two lovely damsels, daughters of daimios, whom he had released from the clutches of the devil chief; and him too he brought as a prisoner.
Although the Peach is a fast-growing tree—Momo means a hundred as well as a peach, and is the emblem of longevity—it is an appropriate gift for a girl or a woman. This notion must, I think, have come from China, where the ​ruddy blossoms or the carmine buds of the Peach are an invariable accompaniment of the China-New-Year (usually occurring in February), and where the blossoms are much prized. There is a tale of a certain miraculous being, named Seibo, a ruler in Western China, who sent some of the fruit to the Emperor Butei. This variety, he told him, bore fruit only once in three thousand years, and if he would eat them he would live for ever. Evidently Butei died before he had time (or inclination?) to eat the Peaches, for we do not hear of him to-day, and no Chinese Peach which one sees in our times would inspire one with even the wish for eternal life.
Another pretty fairy story is that of the Old Man who made the Trees to Blossom. A poor old man had a dog of which he was very fond, and his affection was reciprocated. Living next door was another old man, of a cruel, avaricious, evil disposition, who lost no opportunity of beating and otherwise ill-using the dog whenever he got a chance. One day the owner of the dog heard him barking loudly in the field at the back of the house, and went out to see what was the matter. He found the dog digging furiously under a Yenoki tree, and, getting a spade, immediately began to assist him. After digging for some time, he found a very large heap of gold and silver coins, which he and his ​wife carried home with great glee, for they were now rich. The neighbour, who in the meanwhile had seen everything through the hedge, became very envious, for, as he said to himself, why should not he also find a treasure? So he borrowed the dog and went into his field, where he too had a Yenoki tree, and made the dog begin digging there. But when he got his spade and dug deeper he could find nothing but dirt. Furious at his disappointment he killed the dog and buried him in the hole he had dug. When the dog’s master heard of this he was very sad, and asked his neighbour to give him the tree under which the dog was buried, which was agreed to; whereupon he cut it down and made a rice mortar of a part of the trunk. This mortar turned out to have miraculous properties, for it not only pounded the rice itself, but multiplied it, and made it into cakes which lasted indefinitely. The neighbour then borrowed the mortar, but was not able to profit by it, as it changed the rice into dirt; so he burnt it. Then our old man begged for the ashes of the mortar, which were given him; and, accidentally spilling some of them on a withered Peach tree, he saw to his astonishment that the tree instantly blossomed. The fame of this spread all round the country-side, and he was summoned to the palace of the daimio, who had many withered Peach trees, which our friend made to blossom; at which the daimio was so delighted that he
PEONIES IN A TEA GARDEN, KYOTO
​raised the old man to great honour and riches, while the cruel neighbour was cast into prison, whence he never emerged.
The Pæony is another flower more admired in China than in Japan. The reason for this, if one regards the characteristics of the two races, is not far to seek. China is all for the rich outside, Japan for the delicate heart of things. China is magnificent, flamboyant, in her tastes; Japan’s are refined, subdued, fair without show, the most perfect in the world. The splendid and gorgeous reds and pinks and crimsons of the Azaleas and Pæonies are all very well for savages like the Chinese and myself; the Japanese will revel in the pearly half-tints, the mauves and dove colours of their Irises and Wistarias, the pale rosy clouds of their masses of Plum and Cherry.
The Pæony is called ‘the rich man’s flower.’ It is difficult and expensive of cultivation, even in the hands of an expert Chinese gardener, as I have found to my cost; and so ungraciously does it reward patience and care in its growing in Japan that it is ranked with the favours of princes. It is associated with lions and peacocks (both imported emblems) in the decoration of temples and palaces. It is, perhaps because of its fickleness, likened to a woman—and not to too good a woman either, for in their heart of hearts I am sure the Japanese regard her as a ​painted Jezebel. Most of the stories in its praise come from China. The prettiest is that of Yo Ki Hi, the favoured concubine of the Emperor Genso, who touched with her red-stained finger-tips the Pæony petals, and (in shame, or rivalry, or delight, the story tells not) they turned crimson.
But Pæonies have also a ghostly association, in this case not so much in China as in Japan. The lanterns at the Bon (the ‘Festival of All Souls’ Day’) are decorated with that seemingly incompatible, big, bouncing flower. Lafcadio Hearn retells, in his inimitable way, the tale of a ghost play that is given at this season, which I must condense, but cannot omit.
O Tsuyu, a beautiful girl, was in love with Shinzaburo Ogihara, a samurai, and died of love for him, being accompanied to the land of the spirits by her faithful maid, O Yone. Ogihara was ignorant of their death. One evening he saw two young women passing the gate of his house, with Pæony lanterns in their hands, and he asked them in. These were the ghosts of the two girls. Every evening for a week they came to the house to pass the night there, leaving very early in the morning before it was light. Then Ogihara was told that they were not living beings but ghosts, and he appealed to a priest for a charm against ghosts, which he hung up at the door, and for some time it effectually kept them out. But one night he ​forgot to hang up the charm, and he was found dead in his bed in the morning.
Another Pæony story, which Miss Du Cane gives, comes from China:
Kosei was a young scholar who lived in Kaseikyu, a place famous for its Pæonies. One morning on looking out of his window he saw a beautiful young lady, dressed in white, standing among the Pæonies, which were then in bloom. He saw her there every day, and fell in love with her. Then she appeared to him in a dream, and they promised to love each other; and they thus met every day. At last she told him that she had to go away; and the next morning he found that all the Pæonies had disappeared, and he saw her no more for a long time. But at last she appeared to him again, and told him that she was the spirit of the Pæony. While the flower was in bloom she was a living spirit, but after the flower was dead she was only the ghost. She also told him to be careful to water the roots of the old Pæonies every day, and the following morning he found that new shoots were springing up from these old roots.
The Azalea, for some inscrutable reason, seems to have few superstitions or stories connected with it. I was told in Hong-Kong that the Chinese regarded the scarlet flower at least as unlucky, and that its introduction into the house would be followed by a death. This was then contradicted, and the horrid idea ​accredited to Japan. But there too it was vehemently denied; and, if any such belief in its powers of misfortune exists, our servant must be very careless for us, in running us into danger, for my entire house in Hong-Kong is decorated for six weeks in the early spring with rosy Azalea branches, brought in from the hill-side by our Chinese gardener. Moreover, in Japan my little Japanese maid kept fresh red and pink Azaleas in my room, and, still more to the point, in my children’s day nursery, as long as they lasted. The white Azalea, they told me, was the returned soul of a woman who had died of love, and a wicked friend asked if the yellow flower was the soul of a Chinaman who had not.
Of other ill omens about flowers I may say here that the alleged aversion of the Japanese to the so-called ‘Death Lily’ (the Nerine) is greatly exaggerated. One reads constantly that it is never seen in the peasants’ houses, or anywhere except, disregarded, at the edges of rice-fields. I can state emphatically that I have frequently seen it in bamboo vases in the niche of small shopkeepers’ houses; I have seen the children gathering great bunches of the blood-red blooms; and I have been given nosegays of the fatal flower by good old country-folk who, if they had had so baleful a superstition about it, would be the last to offer me such a gift. I do not imagine, however, that they care particularly themselves for these Lilies. Red, ​except in the autumn Maples, when the bright, glowing sun seems to call for gaiety and brilliant colours, does not seem to appeal to them. The Nerine (Lycoris radiata) blooms at the time of the September rains, and the name ‘Equinox Flower,’ as it is often called, is really, I believe, the only suggestion of bad omen there is about it. In the same way a red Camellia, Mr. Chamberlain points out, is regarded by the Japanese as suggestive of a decapitated head, and I can understand it (though he says he cannot), because the heavy, hard, round bloom drops or breaks off in such a horrid sudden manner from the neck! Yet the glossy leaves of the same handsome tree decorate more than half the wayside shrines all over Japan—a poor compliment, if they really disliked it as much as such a belief, in so refined and æsthetic a people, would imply.
The Iris—the Undine of plants—is never contented without water, and she is happiest when she can stand ankle-deep in it, not stirring on her slender stalk, so that she may use the smooth surface of the pool as a mirror. The Iris and the Wistaria are both suggestive of the feminine qualities, but the latter has the more clinging grace, while the former, like a Quakeress, has more shyness and modesty. But the Iris—or rather the Shobu or Sweet Flag so often mistaken for the Iris—is a healer too, and her very presence is supposed to ward off disease. On the fifth of May, the ‘Festival of the Boys,’ its ​sword-like leaves bound in sheaves are hung from the eaves of all the houses, are put to perfume all the baths, and are even steeped as tea or drunk in saké. One of the ceremonies of Purification used formerly to consist of waving ferns and rushes (and are not Shobu leaves implied?) over the person to be purified, and later these were flung into the water. In more recent times, first linen and then sheets of paper, called unsa (really gohei), were substituted. I cannot find any reason for this; the fact is recorded by several writers without comment, so I must be my own authority for explaining it. Cleanliness is ever next to godliness, and often ahead of it, in Japan. The fragrance of the Shobu makes cleanliness a joy, and therefore a rite on the day when the plants have first begun to appear. The medicinal efficacy of the root of the plant those persons may know who remember the ‘Sweet Flag Root’ of their childhood. What wet feet we got hunting for it! How nasty it tasted, nibbled raw! And what fabulous prices, the farmers’ children told us, the ‘Shakers’ who made ‘medicine from the Yarbs’ would give for it! Poor, graceful plants, sacrificed to make a spring tonic!
I like better to think that the pretty feminine things have given up their lives in ​the cause of beauty—made into powder, to take the shine off a dainty lady’s cheek, or to dry the dimpled, rosy skin of a baby. They say that, in the old days, in order to save their Shobu roots, and thus their fragrant powder, when the order went out that every available inch of land was to be planted in rice, the Irises were set on the house roofs. From this exalted position they have not to this day been banished, although now poor indeed is the house which has not Iris plants in its garden as well.
All sorts of delicate compliments and poetic congratulations are conveyed to friends by these latter flowers, but the colour should be considered carefully, and on no account must the most lovely of mauves or purples be sent on the occasion of a marriage, as that is a fickle colour, and would presage change. A girl may not even meet her betrothed for the first time in a kimono of a soft violet shade, nor wear an obi of purple brocade then, and how a foreign lover’s offering of violets would be regarded by her I cannot say.
Shobu leaves are religiously significant, too, and are used in Shinto rites of Purification; while, waved in the air and thrashed upon the ground, they keep away malignant spirits.
A Japanese friend has given me a legend about the Shobu, which originally came from China. Once upon a time, in China, a man was chased by a demon, and he was forced to take refuge in ​a Shobu field. To his great astonishment, the evil spirit could not come into the field on account of the odour of the Shobu. As this is supposed to have happened on the fifth of May, the custom of using Shobu, as a token of casting out of evil spirits, was adopted on that date.
Many more quaint and charming ideas about other plants and things there are to tell. There is the Cassia or Cinnamon tree (Katsura), for instance, which grows in the moon, and reddens in the autumn with the changing leaves. The Japanese also have a ‘Herb of Forgetfulness’ (Wasurigusa), and Mr. Chamberlain has translated a pretty poem about it—
“I asked my soul where springs th’ ill-omened seed That bears the herb of dull forgetfulness; And answer straightway came: ‘The accursed weed Grows in the heart which has no tenderness.’ ”
There is the pretty coupling of the Lespedeza and her lover the Stag—the modest Lespedeza, so loved by the Japanese. Then there is the tale of the Melon Rock (Kwashi Seki), in the Choin-in Temple at Kyoto, from which a Melon seed sprouted, splitting the stone by the strength of its growth; and grew, bloomed, and bore fruit, all in a single night.
The Persimmon, an uninteresting fruit enough to me, in the East, although so bound up with childish adventures in Virginia and ​Arkansas, took on a new charm after I heard the story of the Poet of the Persimmon tree.
A great warrior, called Ayabe, one day found in his garden, standing beneath a Persimmon tree, a child more beautiful than anything human can be. Asked who he was and whence he came the child replied, “I have no father and no mother, but the moon and the winds obey me, and poetry’s my delight.” The husband and wife at once adopted the child, and named him Hetomaro (Kakinomoto), which means ‘Persimmon tree,’ and he became in time a great poet. The guileless chronicler concludes that the veracity of this tale is unimpeachable, as the surname Ayabe is still borne in that place, and a Persimmon tree grows on the poet’s grave, whose fruit is pointed and black at the end, like a pen (ink-brush)!
In the Utsubo Monogatari we read of demons cutting up an immense Kiri tree (Paulownia imperialis), when a boy comes down from the sky with a fine accompaniment of thunder and lightning, and a dragon to ride on, and demands part of the tree to make into lutes. He makes thirty lutes, and sets off again with a convenient whirlwind to carry the musical instruments for him.
One curious belief is that only virile, healthy young men may graft trees or plant seed. A hundred—a thousand—graceful, pleasing ideas ​in regard to plants could be given; Japanese literature teems with them, for flowers are bound up in the lives and affections of every one, and even peasants make poems, or quote them. Here is an example: Prince Ota Dokwan, hunting in the mountains with his suite, was overtaken by driving rain. He stopped at a wayside inn to ask for the loan of one of the straw rain-coats the Japanese wear. The girl of whom the request was made went off, and returned greatly embarrassed without the coat and without an explanation, but with a Yamabuki blossom (a kind of yellow Rose) on her outstretched fan. The Prince was furious, and started away in a tremendous rage, when one of his followers interpreted the poor girl’s action by quoting the verse by which her behaviour, a subtle apology, was prompted—
“The Yamabuki blossom has A wealth of petals gay; But yet! in spite of this, alas! I much regret to say, No seed can it display,”
which by a play upon words really means, “The mountain flower herself has no rain-coat.”
* ↑ See Mr. Percival Lowell’s Occult Japan for an account of the full ceremonial.
* ↑ The flower of which conventionalized forms the Imperial crest.
* ↑ “Nanae yae Hana wa sake domo Yamabuki no Mi no hitotsu dani Naka zo kanashiki.” A Hundred Verses from Old Japan (W. N. Porter)
GATEWAY OF SHAKWE GARDENS NEAR TOKIO
​Again, there is a fable (in a Nō play) of the Angel and the Pine Tree. An Angel (or ‘Fairy,’ as Mr. Chamberlain translates it) came to a Pine forest, and, for some reason not explained, hung her coat of feathers on one of the Pines and left it there while she climbed up a near-by mountain to look at Fujiyama. This show of æsthetic taste and praiseworthy confidence in man was hardly rewarded as it should have been, for she got back just in time to find a fisherman making off with the robe. With great politeness she begged its return, as without her feathery garments she would not be able to fly back to her home in the moon. With an equal show of courtesy the fisherman promised to restore it to her if she would first dance for him. So, draped in her light and beautiful dress of feathers, beneath the great Pines on the sandy beach she pirouetted and floated, and at last, on fairy wings, disappeared into the evening sky.
Yet again, there is the story of the White Rose with a Red Centre. A beautiful princess loved the wrong man, so a Buddha turned her lovely white body into a pure white Rose, but her heart still beat red and warm for love of ​the man for whose sake she suffered, and so to this day the flower keeps its deep red heart.
Some of the ideas connected with flowers, which are not legends, are often very charming. The Mimosa, for instance, is called Nemu (‘The Sleeper’), as it shuts its leaves at a touch, and slumbers at night and until late in the spring. Maple leaves typify ‘Changing Love.’ A heartless beauty of the Yoshiwara (I do not believe that any other type of woman would do it, for cruelty and inconstancy are not traits of ordinary women in Japan) will sometimes send her lover a branch of the red leaves to signify that her affections have changed also. Prettier is the notion that a Maple leaf, five-fingered, delicately veined, resembles a baby’s hand, and that a girl who blushes has ‘scattered red leaves on her face.’
But there are legends, too, of the Maple, and Imperial ones at that. The Emperor Takakora-No-In had many of the trees which he loved planted at Kita-No-Jin, which he called Momiji Yama—that is, ‘Mount Maple Tree.’ Like many of us others, he loved to see the carpet of scarlet, bronze, and crimson leaves on the ground, and, perhaps, to shuffle through them with noisy feet, and so no gardeners were allowed to rake up or sweep away the fair matting that the night winds had laid down. But, alas! some gardener, incorrigibly neat, cleared them away—red leaves for the burning. The Emperor, luckily ​for the culprit, bethought him of the famous hues of the poet, Ri-Tai-Ha-Ku, which go, in English—
“We’ll warm our bodies gathering maple leaves, In turn those red boughs to the flames consign; And then we’ll warm the saké, hot and sweet. To warm our Autumn hearts with the hot wine,”
and, naturally being pleased with his appositeness, he forgave the delinquent.
There is a Maple tree reported from Matsuoora to have blushed like a girl in the midsummer, deliberately, to call forth the praise of the poet Chunagou Takasuke, and to have remained green as the Laurel ever after, having won her bays.
The Chrysanthemum (Kiku) is, in more ways than one, an emblem of Japan. Its many rays are like the rising sun—the Imperial flag and the national crest of the Emperor; and its petals are also like the spokes in the wheel of life. But there is another reason why the flower has been chosen as the insignia of royalty. The wild Chrysanthemum is a straggling plant, of long fibrous stems, and is called Kakura-no-Hana (‘Bind-weed’ or ‘Binding Flower’) as the yellow blossoms are tied together in a bunch at the top; even so does the Mikado bind the separate lives and interests of his people into ​one golden head—the emblem of the sun itself. Also it is the ‘Flower of the Four Seasons,’ as it blooms at all times of the year, like Majesty. And, in the case of this particular monarch, his birthday is in the Chrysanthemum month—November. The flower typifies also, with its numerous petals, many years of a long life, hardiness, and courage. It is one of the Sikunshi, or ‘Four Floral Gentlemen,’ and is the nobleman of the group. Many are the legends that concern it.
That of the fair girl whose maud on her kimono was, like the Emperor’s, a Chrysanthemum, is beautifully told by Lafcadio Hearn. One day, she saw a handsome young samurai passing in the street; their eyes met; her heart went out to him; but he disappeared in the throng. After that, whenever she went out she wore that purple kiku-adorned kimono, in order that he should recognize her again if they met, and when she was at home she wept and prayed before it, and sighed her heart and finally her life out, in vain longings. After her death the beautiful robe was given as an offering to one of the temples, and by the priests sold four times, for each time it was returned because the wearer had died obsessed by the image of a handsome young knight. Then at last, at the temple, the haunted garment was solemnly set on fire. At the invocation (Munu myo ho renge Kyo) great sparks flew up that set fire to the temple, and, at last, to all Tokio.
​The Chrysanthemum is supposed to make a fairy wine that is a drink of forgetfulness, which is the foundation of the Far Eastern version of Rip Van Winkle. Mr. Chamberlain tells it as follows:—
“There is an old Chinese story of a peasant who, following up the banks of a stream, bordered with flowering Chrysanthemums, arrived at the mountain home of the elves and fairies. After spending a few hours feasting with them, and watching them play at checkers, he set out on his homeward route, but found, to his amazement, on reaching the spot whence he had set out, that more than seven hundred years had elapsed and that the village was now peopled by his own remote posterity.”
Another Chrysanthemum story, of the girl O Kiku, has already been given in the chapter on Wells, but the one I like best of all is that of the Chrysanthemum Promise:
Samon Hase, a scholar and samurai, entertained a perfect stranger to whom he offered a night’s lodging. His guest, whose name was Soemon Akana, was suddenly taken ill in the night, and Samon nursed him until he was well again, the two becoming fast friends and sworn brothers. Soemon had to go back to his home ​on business, but swore to return and pass the remainder of his days with his new brother, indicating the time of the Chrysanthemum Feast as the date of his return. The appointed day came, but up to sunset there were no signs of Soemon, and Samon was about to retire for the night when he saw a curious black shadow approaching swiftly under the moon. This was Soemon, who explained that he was dead, having killed himself, but, being under a bond to come on that day, he had redeemed his promise.
I like to think that this story shows the Japanese faith in keeping their word in a truer light than the conduct of merchants who have dealings with foreigners might suggest. The idea is the old knightly one that only death itself—and sometimes not even death—can hinder a man from keeping a promise, and, as such, the Chrysanthemum is a true emblem of Japan.
* ↑ I can hardly credit this story, however well vouched for. In my many journeyings in Japan I have never yet had anything stolen, and in long rambling or sketching expeditions in the country we have all of us left coats, umbrellas, paints, and Japanese cushions half-way along our route to be called for on our way back, and they have never been disturbed.
* ↑ The national crest, or that of the Mikado as Emperor of Japan, is the Chrysanthemum. His personal crest is that of the Paulownia imperialis.
* ↑ He has also translated it into verse—from that rare thing in Japanese literature a long poem on the subject.