Hyakumonogatari: Light One Hundred Candles, Blow Out One After Each Story

In Japan during the Edo period, there was a popular pastime in the summer called "Hyakumonogatari" (One Hundred Tales).

Everyone would gather in a room in the evening, darken the room, and light one hundred candles or one hundred lamps, with blue paper over the lamps, turning the whole room a ghostly blue. Each person would take turns telling a ghost story; after finishing one, they would blow out one candle. As more and more stories were told, the room grew darker and darker, and it was said that when the hundredth story was told and the last candle went out, something would truly appear.

So many people would stop at the ninety-ninth story, afraid to tell the last one. Some versions say that after telling a story, you had to walk into another room, look at yourself in the mirror, and then come back—walking all the way in the dark, which was even more terrifying.

Some stories say that someone actually reached the hundredth tale. In the instant all the candles went out, the room was pitch black; some felt a breeze behind them, others felt a pair of ice-cold hands land on their shoulders from behind. When the lights were turned on, there was nothing. Others say that after finishing, everyone discovered there was an extra person in the room whom no one knew.

This practice was said to have originally been used by samurai to test their courage, and later became a summer game for townspeople to cool off. During the Edo period, there were many books with "Hyakumonogatari" in the title, each collecting one hundred strange tales. These books were very popular and influenced many later writers.

Even now in Japan, television stations still run similar programs in the summer, with the host sitting in a pitch-black room, a circle of candles in front, telling them one by one and blowing each out after speaking, all the way to the last one.

#Ghosts #网络转载 #日本怪谈