Japan's Three Great Ghost Stories" (Nihon san dai Kaidan 日本三大怪談) PART THREE: Otsuyu

OTSUYU AND THE PEONY LANTERN

We finally arrived to the third and last Japan's Great Ghost Story: Otsuyu, the Peony Lantern Otsuyu KaidanBotanDōrō お露　怪談牡丹燈籠. 

It is a terrible romantic story that talks about a forbidden love: a love between a human and a dead.

Long ago there was a samurai named Ogiwara Shinnojō. On the first night of Obon, Japanese buddhist festival for the death, Ogiwara saw a beautiful woman and her servant walking down the street, carrying a lantern with a peony motif. Ogiwara instantly fell in love with the beautiful woman. She said her name was Otsuyu, "dew". He invited her into his home and that night they made love. Otsuyu stayed with Ogiwara until  the lamplight consumed itself and then she left before the dawn. She didn't want to leave, but she said she had to.

Otsuyu and her servant named back to see Ogiwara the following night, carrying the same peony lantern. Otsuyu and Ogiwara madly fell in love with each other, especially Ogiwara who couldn't think about anything else but Otsuyu. Ogiwara stopped working and seeing his friends or other women. During the day time he was waiting for Otsuyu to come at night. Each night they made love, and each night she left before dawn with her peony lantern. 

However, day after day, Ogiwara’s friends began to worry for him.  One day, one of Ogiwara's friends, who was living next door, peeked through a hole in Ogiwara’s wall. However, instead of a beautiful woman, he saw Ogiwara making love with a skeleton. The skeleton was. talking to Ogiwara and moving its arms and legs. Ogiwara's friend was scared and ranaway.

The next morning, Ogiwara's friend told Ogiwara the truth: Otsuyu was a ghost and something terrible would happen if he wouldn't stop seeing her. He suggested Ogiwara to ask for a monk's help at the local temple. At the temple, the monk showed to Ogiwara Otsuyu’s grave: a peony lantern was on her tomb. The monk gave to Ogiwara a magical charm to put in his house in order to keep the ghost far away. Ogiwara placed the charm on his door and he waited for the night and for Otsuyu. But she didn't come: the charm was working perfectly.

However, Ogiwara missed Otsuyu so much that started thinking that his life was meaningless: every time he missed her he drunk trying to forget her. 

One night, when he was extremely drunk, Ogiwara went again to Otsuyu’s grave. Otsuyu appeared to him, and invited him to her home: they would have "lived" forever together in the other world. 

After some days, since Ogiwara had been missing, the monk, suspicious, opened Otsuyu’s grave: he saw the dead body of Ogiwara hugging Otsuyu's skeleton.