Kuchisake-onna, the Slit-Mouthed Woman of Japan

Should you find yourself on the streets of Tokyo at night, be wary of any young woman wearing a surgical mask who wishes to speak with you - and this might be tougher than you think as surgical masks are commonly worn by the sick and those wishing to avoid sickness in Japan. There is a ghoulish spectre who takes advantage of the common use of masks for her own vicious ends, and she is known as Kuchisake-onna, the slit-mouthed woman.

Appearing as a beautiful young woman, dressed stylishly and wearing the surgical mask, she will approach and ask "do you think I'm pretty?" If you answer yes, she will remove the mask, revealing that her mouth has been slashed from ear-to-ear, and ask "do you think I'm pretty, now?" Those who answer "no" will be killed with the knife or shears that she carries, those who answer "yes" will be followed home, where they will be killed and their mouths cut to resemble Kuchisake-onna's.

There are many stories describing the origins of this malicious spirit, but the most common one is that she was the wife of a Samurai. She was a beautiful woman, and she may have been cheating, or the samurai may simply have been pathologically jealous and convinced that she would stray. Regardless, one day, he took a blade to her mouth, slicing through both cheeks, while screaming "who will think you're beautiful now?" Whether he killed his wife then and there, she died of her injuries, or she lived but harbored malice for the wrong done to her is unknown.

What is known is that she has been said to appear throughout Japan, and in specific places in nearly every neighborhood of Tokyo.

Commentary: This is a classic urban legend from Japan. Kuchisake-onna has been known since at least the 1970s, and may date to even earlier (at least one source claims that it is derived from a legend that may be as much as 1,200 years old, though it is also possible that the legend and the urban legend were linked together post-hoc). Rumor holds that there are coroner's records from the late 70s that describe a woman who had been chasing small children was either killed or injured when hit by a car, and that her injury involved the ripping of the cheeks, possibly spawning a Kuchisake-onna scare in 1979.

In true urban legend style, there are many variations on the story. Although usually told as a ghost story - the woman is the wife of a medeival Samurai - there are variations in which she is a recent victim of domestic violence, or the victim of an incompetent plastic surgeon, and therefore may be a ghost or may simply by a person who has suffered a psychotic break due to trauma. In some variations of her story, the victims are not killed, but simply have their mouths slit. Also, in some versions of the story, answering "yes" a second time will result not in death or injury, but in Kuchisake-onna giving the potential victim a valuable but blood-covered ruby.

It's worth noting that the Japanese versions of the phrases "Am I pretty?" and "Am I to cut?" sound very similar. This particular spirit isn't just evil, she's evil enough to crack bad puns.

Kuchisake-onna also moves with the times. Some variations on the story hold that she can move up to 100 meters in 3 seconds, faster than an automobile (potentially preventing escape by vehicle). Others hold that she now drives a red sports car, thus eliminating the need for her to run quickly.

Also, over time, ways to escape Kuchisake-onna have entered the legend. In some versions, answering "yes" a second time allows escape, in others, telling her that she is "so-so" or "of average appearance" confuses her and escape can be made while she tries to figure out what to do next. A particularly funny escape plan holds that saying the word "brillcream" three times will help you escape. In one of my favorite versions of the story, throwing a piece of Pocky, candy, or some fruit at her or on the ground will force her to try to dodge it or pick it up, allowing escape.

What's interesting to me about the escape methods is that they all seem to follow a pattern seen for vicious monsters in folklore around the world - provide them with a task they must complete (picking up the Pocky) or confuse them (always in some formulaic way - you'd think that these creatures would eventually work out a standard course of action) and you can escape. It just goes to show, whether urban legends or ancient myths, folklore seems to follow some basic rules.

It's worth noting that there are two films based on the Kuchisake-onna legend. Fans of Japanese horror films may want to look into them.

Video:

Oh, Youtube searches, is there anything that you can't do?



Sources: Japan Times, Hometown Tales Podcast, Scary for kids, Blog, Wikipedia, Internet

The Daschund of Baker Street (AKA, possibly the dumbest ghost story ever told)

Two women shared lodging on Baker Street in London. One owned a pet daschund, who, one day, went missing. The women searched but could not find the dog, and it appears that the animal was presumed dead.

However, for several weeks after the disappearance, the dog was seen wandering Baker Street, apparently the dogs spirit was no resting easy.

Commentary: Okay, this has got to be my candidate for the most pitiful excuse for a ghost story ever. I wouldn't have bothered to include it, except for the fact that I personally find it hilarious that anyone would bother to consider this a ghost story at all. I could only find one reference for it, the, ahem, august Paranormal Database, and I am surprised that it even showed up there.

This is a ghost story? Really? Really?

Okay, so many ghost stories can be explained by anyone with a knowledge of sleep physiology, or how our brains visual centers work, or carefully examination of the physical environment. But this particular story requires absolutely no special knowledge or investigation.

If a dog disappears, and then is seen for a few weeks thereafter in the general vicinity of where it vanished, then why immediately assume that it's a ghost dog and not, oh, I don't know, maybe the real dog wandering around the neighborhood wondering where the fuck precisely it's owner is? I mean, as far as alternate explanations go, this is a pretty easy one.

Sources: Paranormal Database

The Ghost of Mary Nichols

On the night of August 31st, 1888, a woman named Mary Ann Nichols was on her way to a boarding house after having spent the evening at a local pub. She discovered upon arrival that she lacked the money for a bed that night, and so went to work to make the money - Nichols was a prostitute and was aware that she would be able to walk the streets and produce the money in short order.

At 3:40 am, she was found by a local carter, laying on her back on Bucks Row (now Durward Street) with her legs stretched out and her skirt up. The carter didn't look too closely and didn't know if she was alive or dead. When the police finally arrived, it was found that she had been savagely attacked, and her head nearly cut off. Her murderer was never found, but in short order Mary Ann Nichols became known as the first confirmed victim of Jack the Ripper.

Since that time, people walking on the road at night have reported seeing a strange, green glowing figure of a woman huddled in the gutter of the street at the spot where the body was discovered.

Commentary: As I prepare for my trip to London, I decided to look up London ghost stories, and figured that there would be some related to Jack the Ripper - and I was not disappointed. In addition to the story of Mary Ann Nichol's ghost, there are also hauntings attributed to Annie Chapman, the second victim, and Catherine Eddowes, the fourth victim. This isn't surprising, as Jack the Ripper has held the public imagination consistently since 1888. Given that the locations of the murders are well known, anything that seemed odd in these locations would be likely to be attributed to the ghosts of his victims, and it would be a shock if ghost stories weren't told about the murder locations.

What is both interesting and disturbing about the fascination that we have with these murders is what it says about our history, as well as our present. The murder victims were of the lower ranks of Victorian society, living in the slums, and working as prostitutes at the time of their deaths. Had the murders not been so grisly, it is possible that they wouldn't have gathered the attention from law enforcement that they did. That being said, some of the accusations thrown at the police force - that it would have captured the murderer had it been more concerned about the victims - are probably unfair to at least some degree. While it is likely that more effort would have been made especially early on if the victims hadn't been prostitutes, it is also true that this case grabbed such media and official attention that the police were being pressured to find the murderer, regardless of whether they were inclined to do so or not. So, while class politics likely played a role in the investigations, there is no reason to expect that the murderer would have been caught if middle-class or upper-class women had been the targets.

It is also worth considering that someone who is unknown, Jack the ripper, is the focus of the public fascination with the case. While the victims' names are known, all that most people know about them otherwise is that they were prostitutes. They are sometimes portrayed as victims made vulnerable by a profession that they were forced into, sometimes as outsiders whose "immoral" profession adds additional spice to an already wild story. The reality is rather different. Look here for a brief biography of Mary Nichols, and even in these few paragraphs, she appears neither as a wanton harlot nor as a faceless victim, but as someone with a rather more complex past who ended up where she was through a variety of circumstances, some forced upon her and others of her own making. This is worth remembering, as all of us (including, obviously, myself, based on the fact that I went looking for, and posted, a ghost story related to this) are prone to probing the sensationalism and forgetting that these were real people with real lives who were killed by Jack the Ripper.

One final note: Look through the sources. You'll notice that the cut-and-paste is once again present in them thar inter-tubes.

Sources: Mysterious Britain, Internet, Paranormal Database, Internet

The Screaming Skull of Bettiscombe Manor

Azariah Pinney, a man of truly ill-repute by most stories, travelled from England to the West Indies (AKA the Carribean) in 1685. Some stories hold that he was banished, others that he had business dealings. Regardless, on his return he brought with him a slave, a man of African-descent who was poorly treated by Pinney. Pinney died and passed the estates on to his son and, after a time, the slave began to die - whether from the effects of his mis-treatment or a disease contracted in England is unknown - and he stated that he wished for his body to be returned to the Caribean for burial.

Unsurprisingly, Pinney refused the cost of returning the body, and instead buried him Bettiscombe churchyard. Shortly afterwards the house became the center of stramge moands and screams, and objects moving of their own accord. After a while, the body was disintered and brought into the house while Pinney tried ot figure out what to do with it. As soon as the body entered the house, the frightening activity ceased. The soft tissue eventually deocmposed, and over time the bones became lost until only the skull remained.

Since then, many attempts have been made to be rid of the skull. One owner of house threw the skull in a pond, only to have the haunting start up again - it didn't take long for the unfortunate man to pull the skull out of the pond and return it to the house. On another occasion another owner dug a deep pit and buried the skull at the bottom, only to walk out the next morning and find the skull sitting on the ground on top of the now filled-in hole.

Commentary: The screaming skull phenomenon seems to be a type of gohst story unique to England, which is rather odd when you think about it. There are many screaming skull stories (many of which will no doubt eventually show up on this site), but most of them seem to have a few things in common: the skull is associated with an impressive house or similar building, some form of non-aural haunting occurs (poltergeist activity, horrific storms, apparitions, etc.), the skull must be kept inside of the house or some misfortune will occur, most of the stories date to the 16th or 17th centuries, and there is usually a connection to nobility (the skull belongs to a noble person, their servant, or their victim). Interestingly, despite the name of the story (the screaming skulls) not all skulls scream in these stories.

Every source that I have found states that the Bettiscombe skull was examined by archaeologistsa and determined to be a few thousand years old and female, and therefore not the skull of a 17th-century slave.

The concept of keeping the skull in a house will strike most of us as morbid, grisly, or disgusting. However, it should be noted that this has not always been the view. At least since humans began to settle in permanent villages and towns, interring the dead in our places of residence, whether in an attached cemetery, under the home, or within a receptacle in the home, has been a common, though by no means universal, practice. In more recent times, skulls have been kept as trophies - a peice of Californian folkore holds that the severed head of the bandit Joaquin Murietta was kept in a jar in a saloon for decades after he was killed by lawmen, and the posession by American GIs of skulls taken from Japanese dead during WWII was common enough, acoording to forensic anthropologist Dr. William Maples' memoirs.

During the 19th and early 20th century, a variation on this type of practice was seen in death masks - casts of the faces of recently dead friends and family members used as decoration in people's homes.

Whether this practice is the source fo the screaming skull legends or not, I can not say. But it may at least explain why people of the 16th and 17th centuries didn't find it too odd to have a skull hanging around the house.

Sources: Internet, Mysterious Britain, Real British Ghosts, Internet

Aldwych Station, London, UK

Updated with photos May 12, 2010

The Aldwych underground station in London is a ghost station in two senses. It no longer serves as an active subway station, but is maintained and used to throw parties, show art exhibitions, and is frequently used as a movie set. It also is said to be haunted by the mysterious figure of a young woman. Workers who clean the tubes at night have reported seeing her moving along the tracks at Aldwych, allegedly frightening some of the workers enough that they refused to come back.

A television crew, recording for the programme Most Haunted claimed to have seen someone moving in the tunnels. However, they claimed to have seen this movement just at the limits of their lights (where their cameras couldn't film - convenient or inconvenient? I leave that for you to decide). Also, the show Most Haunted...how does one say this? It doesn't exactly have a reputation for honesty. I recommend reading the book Will Storr vs. The Supernatural for a great behind-the-scenes description of the show.


Exterior of Station in May 2010

Commentary: I am preparing to go on vacation soon, and will be taking my girlfriend to London, provided that Iceland will finish exploding and let the rest of us get on with our air travel. As such, I thought it appropriate to look up some London ghost stories. Interestingly, the first one that I came across through Google has something in common with the last story I posted about my home town, but I'll get to that in a bit.

Aldwych station was opened in 1907 as part of the Piccadilly line of the London subway system (aka "The Underground" or "The Tube", not to be confused with the band the Tubes). The Piccadilly line was nick-named the Theatre Line because of its proximity to many of London's theatres. As noted above, Aldwych station itself is built on the location of the Royal Strand theatre.

The name Aldwych is derived from the Old English words meaning "old settlement", and is the location of the 7th-century Anglo-Saxon village of Lundenwic (meaning London Settlement), located about a mile away from Londinium (the originally Roman settlement that would grow into the city of London).

In the online sources that to which I have access, the ghost is always said to be the spirit of an actress, but no reason is ever given for assuming that it is an actress other than that the station is at the location of the old theatre. However, prior to this, it was also the site of an art gallery, and then a non-conformist (Protestant but not Church of England) chapel. So, in the absence of any other identifying information, why claim that the ghost belongs to an actress and not someone associated with the art gallery (the doomed lover of a painter, perhaps?) or the church (a jilted bride left at the church's alter who died of a broken heart?) or the station (someone who failed to mind the gap?)? For that matter, why couldn't the ghost be associated with Lundenwic? The only reason that she seems to be routinely identified as an actress is because of tradition and the theatre location.

As for the similarity with the story of Acacia cemetery, it is simply this. With one exception, every website that I have come across that describes the Aldwych ghost uses the exact same phrase: "The ghost is that of an actress who believes she has not enjoyed her last curtain call." Admittedly, it's not a bad line, but it gets redundant after a very short while. Why does it constantly show up? Perhaps because webmasters and content providers are woefully unimaginative. More likely because we are lazy, and cutting-and-pasting is easier than writing a new sentence. But it makes me wonder: when I arrive in London, will I hear different stories about the ghost, that perhaps she is something other than an actress? Is the actress story spread merely because it's easy to cut-and-paste a semi-decent line than to write something new? And, given the prevalence of the internet amongst ghost story enthusiasts, is it possible that one version of the story, complete with the "curtain call" line, may become the standard.

If you're interested, silly photos of the station can be found here.

Sources: H2G2, Internet, Television Show, Internet, Underground History, Internet

Acacia Cemetery, Modesto, CA

Acacia Cemetery is located on Scenic Drive in Modesto, CA. It is claimed that people passing through the cemetery, which has paved roads that allow it to serve as a shortcut for both drivers and pedestrians, will often hear what sounds like a hysterical mourner crying and screaming, even when nobody is there. Sometimes the crying and screaming sounds as if it is so close that people have commented on it sounding as if it was in the car with them. This feeling is sometimes accompanied by a sense of intense dread. Whether these phenomenon are attributed to one of the buried, or someone who once mourned one of the buried, is not known.

Commentary: Sitting at the intersection of Bodem Street and Scenic Drive in Modesto, CA, Acacia Cemetery is across the street from both a hospital and a senior citizen's home. Whether this is oddly appropriate or simply grotesque I leave to the reader to determine for them self. When I was in high school, it was not unusual to see a hand-painted wooden sign advertising "free dirt" at the gate of the cemetery, and as far as we could tell, the sign had been erected by the cemetery management.

But enough of the local color.

One of the things that I find fascinating about this story is that it seems, at least to some degree, to be an Internet phenomenon. I grew up in the area, and never heard about this cemetery - that's not to say that there weren't stories about it pre-Internet (there most likely were), but that they weren't in particularly wide circulation. Now that the Internet is a common information-gathering tool for ghost story enthusiasts, this story is easily found by simply typing "Modesto Ghost Stories" into Google.

What is interesting, however, is that all of the Internet versions of this story are nearly identical - in most cases they have clearly been a cut-and-paste job (check the links below for example). So, rather than the typical "telephone game" scenario that traditionally played out with ghost stories - where one event gets changed or added on to by the next person who tells the story, and so on until the story that emerges is radically different from the one originally told - we have a near-perfect copying of the story from person-to-person and source-to-source.

I am left wondering if, with sites like Shadowlands increasingly becoming the repositories of local ghost legends, if we will see a poverty of variations on ghost stories as time goes on. I hope not - the variability is part of what makes these stories great, and it's possible that people on-line may continue to change the stories just as they did in person for centuries - but I suspect that we may...it's easier to cut-and-paste than to type out a new version, and that's a loss to our collective and developing folklore. Look through the links, and even at the story above, and you'll see little of the dread, and none of the flash, that makes ghost stories fun.


Sources: Internet, Internet, The Illustrious Internet, Internet

The Child Ghost of Ripon, California

When I lived in Ripon, I had a neighbor who lived in a haunted house. We would be out in the yard and see a shape that looked like a child, but without features, run into the space between the houses. When we would go to take a look, there was nobody and nothing there. Sometimes we'd hear kids playing when there was nobody around.

One night, my neighbor opened up a closet that had been closed ever since she bought the house. Inside of the closet, she found a box. Inside of the box was a small dress, like one that a very young girl would wear. As soon as she saw the dress, she was frightened, but didn't know how to react. When her husband came home from work, they talked about it and about the child-like figure that they had seen around the house, and both became more and more frightened as the evening went on.

Finally, they decided to burn the dress. They started a fire, and threw the dress in. As soon as the dress hit the flames, they heard a baby crying, and the crying continued until the dress was completely gone.

Commentary: This is another of the stories that I grew up with. One of the women in my neighborhood would tell this story, or some variation on it (it was always changing) to us kids. She loved to spin ghost stories for us, mostly because she seemed to like to entertain children, but also partially because ghost stories seemed to reinforce her particular religious view of the world.

As a kid, I bought this story, and asked for it many times. However, as I got older, the inconsistencies started to bug me, and I saw the stories of the neighbor for what they were: fun entertainments told by a genuinely warm and caring person who simply wanted to provide the children with fun in a safe environment, but not factual accounts.

I still love her stories. She told me the most memorable version of the Ouija Board Urban Legend that I have ever heard. And I have very fond memories of her as a neighbor and community member. So, in the end, her stories have done her credit, and I think that she would be happy to know that.

I was unsure how to classify this story. It clearly is a campfire story - a story told to entertain with a scare - based on the fact that the details were constantly changing and she didn't seem to much care how coherent the story was most of the time. It is centered around both a house and an object, so should it be considered a haunted house or a haunted object story?

To the haunted house story, I say no. It was always linked to some generic house, with no identifying details given, and the house seemed to be more a setting than an integral part of the story. A haunted object? Well, yes. The dress is certainly important to the story, and is clealry supposed to be the focus of the haunting.

Sources: Personal Account