me in my real shape,-- for it was I who devoured the corpse and the
offerings last night before your eyes... Know, reverend Sir, that I am a
jikininki, [1] -- an eater of human flesh. Have pity upon me, and suffer me
to confess the secret fault by which I became reduced to this condition.


"A long, long time ago, I was a priest in this desolate region. There was
no other priest for many leagues around. So, in that time, the bodies of
the mountain-folk who died used to be brought here,-- sometimes from great
distances,-- in order that I might repeat over them the holy service. But I
repeated the service and performed the rites only as a matter of business;
-- I thought only of the food and the clothes that my sacred profession
enabled me to gain. And because of this selfish impiety I was reborn,
immediately after my death, into the state of a jikininki. Since then I
have been obliged to feed upon the corpses of the people who die in this
district: every one of them I must devour in the way that you saw last
night... Now, reverend Sir, let me beseech you to perform a Segaki-service
[2] for me: help me by your prayers, I entreat you, so that I may be soon
able to escape from this horrible state of existence"...


No sooner had the hermit uttered this petition than he disappeared; and
the hermitage also disappeared at the same instant. And Muso Kokushi found
himself kneeling alone in the high grass, beside an ancient and moss-grown
tomb of the form called go-rin-ishi, [3] which seemed to be the tomb of a
priest.


MUJINA