The Holy Man of Mount Kōya

On a winter journey, a traveler shares an inn room with a gentle monk of Mount Kōya. The monk’s explanation of a peculiar sleeping habit leads to a story of a very different journey: a summer crossing through the remote Hida mountains, where heat, snakes, and a forest raining leeches drive him toward an isolated house.

A beautiful woman offers rice, shelter, and the healing water of a moonlit stream. Her kindness is inseparable from strange encounters with animals and a growing attraction that threatens the monk’s religious resolve. When an old man explains the household’s history, compassion and desire become difficult to distinguish.

Izumi Kyōka’s celebrated tale combines an intimate spoken narrative with mountain terror, sensuous beauty, and supernatural transformation. Neither the framing traveler nor the reader receives a simple moral at its close.