Prevod

Long ago, when Emperor Sanjō made an imperial pilgrimage to the shrine at Hachiman, a man named Kuni no Toshinobu, a clerk in the Office of the Left Capital, accompanied the procession. As they were passing a place called Terado in Nagaoka, people were saying, “This is the district where they say there is a spirit that leads travelers astray.” “So I have heard,” Toshinobu said, and went on. Yet he could make no headway, and the sun was gradually sinking. By now he ought to have reached the vicinity of Yamazaki, but, strangely, he kept passing through the same part of Nagaoka. Just when he thought he was walking along the Otonokuni River, he found himself climbing the slope at Terado again. He passed Terado and went on until he came to the Otonokuni River once more; then, just when he thought he was crossing it, he found himself crossing the Katsura River a little farther on. Gradually dusk drew near. He looked ahead and behind, but not a soul was to be seen. The people who had stretched in a long procession before and behind him had all vanished. When the night grew late, he dismounted beneath the eaves of a house with a plank roof west of Terado and spent the night there. In the morning he thought, “I am an official of the Left Capital. I ought to have stopped at Kujō. There was no reason at all for me to come this far. And as for wandering round and round the same place all night, a spirit that leads travelers astray must have attached itself to me near Kujō and made me come out here and do all this.” When it was light, he returned to his home in the Right Capital. This is the story Toshinobu himself told.