the breasts of the H['e][:i]k['e]-crabs
because of the resentment in their hearts._[49]]

[Footnote 49: The use of the word _hasami_ in the fifth line is a
very good example of _keny[=o]gen_. There is a noun _hasami_, meaning
the nippers of a crab, or a pair of scissors; and there is a verb
_hasami_, meaning to harbor, to cherish, or to entertain. (_Ikon wo
hasamu_ means "to harbor resentment against.") Reading the word only
in connection with those which follow it, we have the phrase _hasami
mochik['e]ri_, "got claws;" but, reading it with the words preceding,
we have the expression _ikon wo mun['e] ni hasami_, "resentment in
their breasts nourishing."]

IX. YANARI

Modern dictionaries ignore the uncanny significations of the word
_Yanari_,--only telling us that it means the sound of the shaking of
a house during an earthquake. But the word used to mean the noise of
the shaking of a house moved by a goblin; and the invisible shaker was
also called _Yanari_. When, without apparent cause, some house would
shudder and creak and groan in the night, folk used to suppose that it
was being shaken from without by supernatural malevolence.

Tokonoma ni
Ik['e]shi tachiki mo
Taor['e]-keri;
Yanari ni yama no
Ugoku kak['e]mono!

[_Even the live tree set in the alcove has fallen down; and
the mountains in the hanging picture tremble to the quaking
made by the Yanari!_[50]]

[Footnote 50: The _tokonoma_ in a Japanese room is a sort of
ornamental recess or alcove, in which a picture is usually hung, and
vases of flowers, or a dwarf tree, are placed.]

X. SAKASA-BASHIRA

The term _Sakasa-bashira_ (in these _ky[=o]ka_ often shortened into
_saka-bashira_) literally means "upside-down post." A wooden post or
pillar, especially a house-post, should be set up according to the
original position of the tree from which it was hewn,--that is to say,
with the part nearest to the roots downward. To erect a house-post in
the contrary way is thought to be unlucky;--formerly such a blunder
was believed to involve unpleasant consequences of a ghostly kind,
because an "upside-down" pillar would do malignant things. It would
moan and groan in the night, and move all its cracks like mouths, and
open all its knots like eyes. Moreover, the spirit of it (for every
house-post has a spirit) would detach its long body from the timber,
and wander about the rooms, head-downwards, making faces at people.
Nor was t