What is Banshu Sarayashiki?
Banshu Sarayashiki is a dish-mansion ghost story set in Himeji in Harima Province (Banshu, today’s southwestern Hyogo Prefecture). It is the other great version of the Sarayashiki legend, alongside Bancho Sarayashiki set in Edo, and is said to preserve an older form of the story.
The story of Banshu Sarayashiki
In the late Muromachi period, Aoyama Tetsuzan, a retainer of the Kodera clan, lords of Himeji Castle, was plotting to overthrow his lord and seize the castle. To uncover the plot, the loyal retainer Kinugasa Motonobu placed his lover Okiku as a maid in Tetsuzan’s household. Okiku learned of the plot and reported it, and the lord escaped the danger.
Realizing what Okiku had done, one of Tetsuzan’s retainers hid one of the ten treasured plates entrusted to her in order to frame her. Accused of losing the plate, Okiku was tortured to death and thrown into a well. From then on, every night, Okiku’s sorrowful voice counting plates was heard from the well, it is said.
Okiku’s Well and the Okiku bug
“Okiku’s Well,” into which Okiku is said to have been thrown, still remains in the grounds of Himeji Castle, a World Heritage site, and draws the attention of visitors.
In the Edo period, large numbers of insect pupae shaped like a woman with her hands tied behind her back were found in Himeji, and people called them “Okiku-mushi” (Okiku bugs), believing them to be Okiku reincarnated. They are thought to be the pupae of the Chinese windmill butterfly. Okiku Shrine, dedicated to her, stands in the grounds of Junisho Shrine in Himeji.
