146
THE BOOK OF HALLOWE'EN
owner of the too lofty edifice misses the blessing.
At Nikko, Japan, where there are many shrines to the spirits of the dead, masques are held to entertain the ghosts who return on Midsummer Day. Every street is lined with lighted lanterns, and the spirits are sent back to the otherworld in straw boats lit with lanterns, and floated down the river. To see ghosts in Japan one must put one hundred rush-lights into a large lantern, and repeat one hundred lines of poetry, taking one light out at the end of each line; or go out into the dark with one light and blow it out. Ghosts are identified with witches. They come back especially on moonlit nights.
"On moonlight nights, when the coast-wind whispers in the branches of the tree, 0-Matsue and Teoyo may sometimes be seen, with bamboo rakes in their hands, gathering together the needles of the fir."
Rinder :Great Fir-Tree of Takasago.
There is a Chinese saying that a mirror is
