World and Lore / Kyoto mystery

The Peony Lantern

"The Peony Lantern" is an old Japanese ghost story. Long ago, a man lost his heart to a most ravishing woman. Every night she would visit him, and the two would embrace until the break of dawn, at which point the woman would invariably rise and take her leave. Eventually, the man discovered that the woman was in fact a ghost, and fearing some terrible curse might befall him, procured a charm which he affixed to the gate of his house, thus preventing the spectral maiden from making any more of her nightly visitations. But the man could not forget the feelings that his phantom love had stirred in his heart. So one day, he went to the temple where her remains had been interred, and what should he see but his beloved standing there, beckoning him to come closer...closer...ever closer... The man's friends and relations realized he was missing and searched for him. But it was all in vain, for he had allowed himself to be dragged into the woman's grave, where only a jumble of white bones remained. Legend has it that, ever since this tragedy, the spirits of the two lovers stalk the streets of Kyoto late at night, condemning all who encounter them to certain doom.