The wronged servant Girl

 

A long time ago when Japan still had Samurai and Daimyos, there lived a poor servant girl who worked in a samurai’s household.

 He had a very beautiful set of ten porcelain plates. They were one of his family heirlooms. 

One day his wife accidentally broke one plate and threw it in the well. The wife was afraid that her husband would become very angry with her, so she blamed the poor servant girl in her place. 

The innocent servant girl did not commit such a crime but it was her words against her mistress. And nobody dared to go against the lord’s wife.

The poor girl pleaded and pleaded her innocence but it was of no avail.

The girl got tied and thrown into the well as her punishment for breaking such a precious heirloom.

It was the same well in which the broken pieces of the plate had been thrown.

Since then the girl’s ghost appeared each night, counting up to figure nine, and then instead of counting ten she would shriek loudly and disappear.

Eventually, the samurai’s wife confessed her crime to her husband. Her husband scolded her harshly but the dreadful wailing of the poor servant girl’s ghost did not stop.

Then one day a friend of the samurai came to his manor.

He was a brave person.

He was given a guest room that was close to the well where the wailing ghost of the servant girl lived.

That night, after everyone had gone to sleep, the ghost again started to count the plates.

The samurai woke up from his deep sleep as the dreadful screaming started.

At first, he was worried that someone might have hurt themselves somehow and fallen in the well. But when he went to investigate he found no one.

The samurai was surprised but he didn’t tell anyone of this incident. He decided to carefully observe a few more days before doing anything. But after two more days of observing the same event happening over and over, he finally decided to confront his friend.

At first, the Lord of the manor was hesitant to tell anything to his friend as the blame for the servant girl dying fell upon his wife’s shoulder squarely. But soon he realized that his friend had heard all the rumors and listened to that awful scream. It was of no use to hide anything from him. So the Lord finally confessed to his friend. 

Hearing this strange story and seeing his friend so distressed the samurai decided to help his friend out. He patiently waited for the night to arrive as his plans could only be executed during that time.

The next night he went and hid in a place near the well. As usual, the ghost came out of the well around midnight and started her counting. But this time when she counted till nine, the samurai spoke up and said ten. Thus finishing the counting for the first time. As counting was finally complete the ghost of the servant girl vanished, finally finding salvation from her agony.

The next morning the samurai told his friend everything and assured him that the ghost of the poor girl will not haunt them anymore.

Hearing this the Lord of the Manor thanked his friend profusely. It was only because of this brave person that they were able to get out of such a situation. Otherwise, they would’ve never been able to appease the girl’s spirit and would’ve been haunted forever by her.

----------

Origin of the story: It is a version of the Japanese story "Bancho Sarayashiki". It has different versions in different prefectures of Japan.

History: The story of the death of Okiku (お菊) first appeared as a bunraku play called Banchō Sarayashiki in July 1741 at the Toyotakeza theater.^[2] The familiar ghost legend had been adapted into a ningyō jōruri production by Asada Iccho and Tamenaga Tarobei I. Like many successful bunraku shows, a kabuki version followed, and in September 1824, Banchō Sarayashiki was staged at the Naka no Shibai theater starring Otani Tomoemon II and Arashi Koroku IV in the roles of Aoyama Daihachi and Okiku.

(Taken from Wikipedia)

Pictures: Taken from google.

Link to Wikipedia for Further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banch%C5%8D_Sarayashiki