a Shobu field. To his great astonishment, the evil spirit could not come into the field on account of the odour of the Shobu. As this is supposed to have happened on the fifth of May, the custom of using Shobu, as a token of casting out of evil spirits, was adopted on that date.
Many more quaint and charming ideas about other plants and things there are to tell. There is the Cassia or Cinnamon tree (Katsura), for instance, which grows in the moon, and reddens in the autumn with the changing leaves. The Japanese also have a ‘Herb of Forgetfulness’ (Wasurigusa), and Mr. Chamberlain has translated a pretty poem about it—
“I asked my soul where springs th’ ill-omened seed
That bears the herb of dull forgetfulness;
And answer straightway came: ‘The accursed weed
Grows in the heart which has no tenderness.’ ”
There is the pretty coupling of the Lespedeza and her lover the Stag—the modest Lespedeza, so loved by the Japanese. Then there is the tale of the Melon Rock (Kwashi Seki), in the Choin-in Temple at Kyoto, from which a Melon seed sprouted, splitting the stone by the strength of its growth; and grew, bloomed, and bore fruit, all in a single night.
The Persimmon, an uninteresting fruit enough to me, in the East, although so bound up with childish adventures in Virginia and
