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<h1>CONCERNING CERTAIN SUPERSTITIONS</h1><!--blank page 198-->
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<h2>CONCERNING CERTAIN SUPERSTITIONS</h2>
<p>Cats, foxes, and badgers are regarded with superstitious awe
by the Japanese, who attribute to them the power of assuming
the human shape in order to bewitch mankind. Like the fairies
of our Western tales, however, they work for good as well as
for evil ends. To do them a good turn is to secure powerful
allies; but woe betide him who injures them!—he and his
will assuredly suffer for it. Cats and foxes seem to have been
looked upon as uncanny beasts all the world over; but it is new
to me that badgers should have a place in fairy-land. The
island of Shikoku, the southernmost of the great Japanese
islands, appears to be the part of the country in which the
badger is regarded with the greatest veneration. Among the many
tricks which he plays upon the human race is one, of which I
have a clever representation carved in ivory. Lying in wait in
lonely places after dusk, the badger watches for benighted
wayfarers: should one appear, the beast, drawing a long breath,
distends his belly and drums delicately upon it with his
clenched fist, producing such entrancing tones, that the
traveller cannot resist turning aside to follow the sound,
which, Will-o'-the-wisp-like, recedes as he advances, until it
lures him on to his destruction. Love is, however, the most
powerful engine which the cat, the fox, and the badger alike
put forth for the ruin of man. No German poet ever imagined a
more captivating water-nymph than the fair virgins by whom the
knight of Japanese romance is assailed: the true hero
recognizes and slays the beast; the weaker mortal yields and
perishes.</p>
<p>The Japanese story-books abound with tales about the pranks
of these creatures, which, like ghosts, even play a part in the
histories of ancient and noble families. I have collected a few
of these, and now beg a hearing for a distinguished and
two-tailed<SPAN id="footnotetag74"
name="footnotetag74"></SPAN><SPAN href="#footnote74"><sup>74</sup></SPAN>
connection of Puss in Boots and the Chatte
Blanche.</p>
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