KifuneIwami Kagura
Kifune
About one thousand years ago, there was a
man who divorced his wife for his own selfish reason. After abandoning his ex-wife,
he began to suffer from nightmares every night. He felt very exhausted by the
nightmares, and he asked a famous exorcist, Abe-no-Seimei, for advice. Seimei
said that the man was possessed with the ill will of the ex-wife. He advised
the man to prepare a straw dummy and put it in his bed in place of him.
The ex-wife visited Kifune Shrine every
midnight to look for the divine power to get revenge on him. On the
twenty-first night, her wish to become a demon was granted. She rushed to her
ex-husband to kill him. She found the dummy and repeatedly complained many
times about his cruel attitude, then she drove a long nail into it again and
again. She danced crazily with pleasure after she thought that she could
successfully kill him. In the end, her spirit was saved by the deity of Kifune
Shrine.
This play is from ‘Kanawa’, a Noh play.
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