The Legend of Onryo
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The Story
A long time ago in the area of Tokyo known as Yotsuya there was a masterless ronin samurai named Iyemon. He wished to marry a beautiful woman named Oiwa, but her father, Samon, had heard of Iyemon’s past misdeeds and refused to allow him to marry his daughter. Iyemon’s servant Naosuke also wished to marry Oiwa’s sister Osode, who was unfortunately already married to a man named Yomoshichi. So Iyemon and Naosuke conspired to murder Oiwa’s father and his servants, and Osode’s husband. In order to win Oiwa’s and Osode’s marriages, they claimed that a local bandit had done the killings and promised that they would avenge their deaths. The women agree to marry them.
Time passes, and Oiwa bears Iyemon a son. But she grows sickly and weak after giving birth and never completely recovers. Iyemon is forced into lower work in order to support his family, and he grows to strongly resent his invalid wife. Soon, Iyemon falls in love with another woman, Oume, who is the granddaughter of a rich doctor. Iyemon schemes to murder his wife with Oume, and Oume recieves some poison from her grandfather, and gives it to Iyemon who in turn delivers it to Oiwa, telling her that it will make her stronger. Oiwa takes the medicine and grows weaker and weaker, but it does not kill her. Rather, it disfigures her face, causing her eye to sag her skin to scar over and bleed, and her hair to fall out in bloody clumps.
Meanwhile, Naosuke and Osode are married, but despite his numerous advances, she keeps refusing his attempts to consummate the marriage.
Iyemon, grown disgusted by Oiwa’s mangled face, then bribes a local man named Takuetsu to rape Oiwa so that Iyemon will have grounds to divorce her. Takuetsu attempts to do so, but is unable due to the way she looks. Instead, he shows Oiwa her own reflection in a mirror, and Oiwa grows furious. She rushes to kill Takuetsu with a sword, and he tries to block her. Oiwa trips and cuts her own throat open with the sword. Bleeding to death, she kills her infant son so that he will not be raised by Iyemon, and she curses her husband’s name with her dying breath. One of Iyemon’s servants, Kohei, becomes aware of the murder. To silence Kohei, Iyemon murders him, and nails the bodies of Oiwa and Kohei to a board, and drops them into a river. He claims the two were having an affair, and he is released from his marriage.
Iyemon and Oume arrange to be married. On their wedding night, Iyemon sees a vision of Oiwa’s ghost. He slashes at her, cutting off her head, but then the vision clears and he realizes he has just murdered his new wife Oume. Terrified, he rushes to his new father-in-law’s house, where he sees a vision of Kohei. He attacks his ghost as well, and ends up murdering his father-in-law too.
Iyemon then works to purge his now-dead second wife’s family, throwing his mother-in-law into a canal, and drowning their servants. His friend Naosuke continues to pressure Osode to consummate the marriage, but she oddly continues to refuse. Around that time, Yomoshichi returns, having not actually been killed, and accuses Osode of adultery. She is shamed, and resigns to an honorable redemption in death. She begs her two husbands to kill her, and they gladly oblige. Her final act, though, is to leave a note to her husband Naosuke informing him that she was actually his own younger sister. Shamed, Naosuke commits suicide as well — but not before Yomoshichi acquires damning evidence against Iyemon from him.
Meanwhile, Iyemon flees, constantly pursued by the ghosts of the people he has killed. Oiwa’s ruined face follows him everywhere, even appearing (famously) in a paper lantern. He flees to the mountains, but when he goes fishing, instead of fish, he pulls out the board with Oiwa’s and Kohei’s bodies nailed to it. He flees to a cabin, where the vines from the trees and the smoke from the fire transform into Oiwa’s hair and try to ensnare him.
Finally, Iyemon flees his cabin, having lost his mind and descended into madness as his nightmares become his reality. He runs into Yomoshichi, who slays Iyemon out of both pity and vengeance.
Her story doesn’t end there, though. She continues to haunt even today. From my post on onryo last year you may remember that Japanese ghosts, unlike Western ghosts, don’t go away after they are put to rest. There is generally no end to their haunting. And Oiwa, being the most horrible ghost in Japan is certainly no exception.
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Interactions of the OnryÅ
Their motive is always the same: vengeance. Onryō are easily powerful enough to swiftly kill any person; however, they prefer letting the object of their hatred live a long life of torment and suffering, watching those he knows suffer and die. They inflict a terrible curse on the people or places that they haunt. This curse can be transmitted to others through contact like a contagious disease, creating a circle of death or destruction that is far more devastating than any ordinary ghost. They make no distinction in whom they target with their grudge; they just wants to destroy. Moreover, this vengeance can never be satisfied as it can for most ghosts. While most yūrei only haunt a person or place until they are exorcised or placated, an onryō’s horrible grudge-curse continues to infect a location long after the ghost itself has been laid to rest.
