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This week's short-story is "The Legend of Tchi-Niu" by LAFCADIO HEARN.



This is the story-of-the-week on the LOA site, which I think we will occasionally take suggestions from.

This story follows a trend of which I find commonly appears in many Chinese ghost stories. There are many variations of this story (or stories similar to it)of which revolve around the idea of a mysterious beautiful woman who appears before a man and offers to be his wife, brings him much good fortune and joy, and than for various different reasons inevitably have to vanish.

It also reminds me of of different stories within European folk lore about silkies or other mermaid like creatures who marry mortal men and after living with them for many years, eventually end up having to return back into the sea once more.

Silver wrote: "This story follows a trend of which I find commonly appears in many Chinese ghost stories. There are many variations of this story (or stories similar to it)of which revolve around the idea of a my..."

I couldn't find a full copy of the Stith-Thompson motif index (folklore classification) on-line but this story is probably in category E, the dead, revenants, deceptions, etc. Isn't this Japanese? I don't recall Hearn translating anything Chinese. If anyone is interested, the motif of this story can be found in several Judge Dee mysteries by Robert van Gulik. And BTW, early editions of Hearn's Japanese translations are rare and quite valuable because most of them were burned in a fire in 1929. Hearn moved to Japan because he couldn't make a living in New Orleans as a journalist and French translator. He never was able to eat the food. It's thought that he was Creole, probably Haitian. Very interesting man.

I was a bit disappointed in it, mostly because I have a wonderful Japanese story that I have been saving for us to read, and this one didn't cut it for me....

I mean it is 4 days since I read it and to be honest... I cannot remember a thing about it. The mark of a good story for me tends to be if I am thinking about it a week after the story ends.

I might have a quick reread and see if I have anything more engaging to add (sorry!).

Cass wrote: "I was a bit disappointed in it..."

Yeah, same with me. It was interesting but didn't quite have enough to really make it memorable. The Japanese story you were considering might be better since the LoA page for this story mentions that Hearn wrote it by expanding one paragraph of a French translation of a Chinese book.

Charles wrote: "Isn't this Japanese?... It's thought that he was Creole..."

According to the info on this page Hearn wrote the story based on a paragraph in a French translation of a Chinese book before he ever went to Japan and started with his writings there.

It also says his parents were a Greek mother and an Irish father, and that he was born in Greece but abandoned with family in Ireland, then sent to a Catholic boarding school in France, and then an English preparatory school before ending up with no money in the U.S. And that's all before he started writing!

Very interesting indeed!