Caterpillar, The : A horror story by Edogawa Rampo. The idea of the caterpillar in both natural and human form often appears in horror tales. “The Caterpillars” by EF Benson and “The Novel of the White Powder” by Arthur Machen immediately come to mind. In this tale, the caterpillar is a military man, a quadruple amputee, catastrophically injured on the battlefield.. His friends pity him and his wife torments him. He meets an unfortunate end with a shocking conclusion comparable to a Maurice Level conte cruel.
Cats : One of two creatures that failed to weep at Buddha’s death, the cat is out of favor in some Asian circles. Like other supernatural creatures, foxes and badgers, cats can bewitch human beings. Young, attractive girls are called cats in old Japanese slang.
The exception is that Japanese sailors prize cats for their power over the spirit world. They believe that cats, especially cats of three colors, can keep the spirits of the deep off their ships. The ocean is full of the angry, grasping souls of drowned sailors, the obake, and cats have control over these awful dead. The breakers on seashore are said to be the white hands of these dead souls, reaching for the unwary.
Cats, Phantom : “The Phantom Cats” is a traditional Japanese tale of a knight who takes shelter in a dilapidated temple haunted by cats. The dancing and shrieking cats cry the enigmatic phrase, “Don’t tell Shippeitaroo," who turns out to be the loyal dog of the local prince. The knight brings the dog to the temple and defeats the phantom felines. Unlike cats, dogs are revered in Japan for their loyalty and obedience, the most famous example is the dog Hachiko who faithfully waited for her master at Shibuya station for many years after his death. See Dogs.
Celestial Stag : One of the unusual creatures to appear in Yuan Mei’s Tsu Pu Yuh is the celestial stag. Belonging to the third class of Chinese demons, it lives underground and guides miners to gold and silver. Like deep-sea fish, if these creatures are brought to the surface, the result is gruesome. They dissolve “into an offensive smelling liquid, which deals pestilence and death around.” (Willoughby-Meade. Chinese Ghouls and Goblins)
The strange thing is that these stags are often anxious to go to the surface. They will fight with the miners, torment them, and even cause their deaths. The only way to placate them is to firmly embed them in clay. Ancient Chinese writers also classify this creature with the corpse demons, ones who feast on human flesh.
Centipede : Strangely enough this normally tiny creature is an enormous monster in Japanese monstrology. One mountain-sized specimen lived in the mountains near Lake Biwa where it was slain by the hero Hidesato. The grateful Dragon King rewarded him with a bag of rice that never emptied.
Chang Hua : Chinese courtier, scholar and writer (232-300). About 30 of his poems are still extant, but he is noted here for his collection of ‘mirabilia’ called Po-wu Chih (Records of Strange Things). The Lieh Yi Chuan (Tales of Marvels) is also attributed to him. He was a highly ranked government official who lost his life during a palace uprising.
Chen, Hsuan-yu : Chinese Tang Dynasty story-teller. He wrote “’Twixt Body and Soul”, the story of a beautiful young wraith, a material projection of the spirit of a living but ailing girl. The wraith bore her husband two sons. When she returned home to her ailing self, the two bodies merged!
Chi, Yun : Chinese writer (1724-1805). Author of Chinese Ghosts and Spirits
Chih Hseih Chi : The Tales of Chi, a collection of Chinese ghostly literature from the 4th or 5th century.
Chih-kuai : Chinese stories that are records of anomalies and extraordinary events. See also Chuan-Qi.
China : China holds the greatest irony for the horror literature fan. Chinese culture is awash with ghosts, supernatural phenomena, creatures, and gruesome folktales. The Hong Kong film industry reflects this strong tendency, but horror literature, as such, rarely in appears in the native grown variety.
Science fiction appears but often with the didactic purpose of popularizing science. Jules Verne and H.G. Wells were translated into Chinese shortly after they were translated into Japanese early in the twentieth century. Poe and his ilk did not follow and when they were finally translated, they did not make the same impact on the Chinese as they made on the Japanese.
Chinese Tales of the Supernatural : A comic strip anthology based on the Liaozhai. Illustrated by Wang Xuanming and translated into English by Clara Snow, it was published in Taiwan in 1996. See also Liaozhai, Pu Sung Ling, and Strange Tales of Liaozhai.
Ching shih : Bizarre Chinese supernatural creatures. These nocturnal entities usually appear as glowing spheres that kill by breathing poison on their victims. Some of them suck the blood of their victims. Their weakness is their compulsion to count each grain of any pile of rice they encounter. Sunlight kills them.
Chochin obake : Japanese lantern demon. In Japan, household objects are thought to
have their own souls or tamashī.
See Ghosts and Inanimate
Objects. See also Oiwa for an example of a demon lantern.
Chongun hongnyōn chōn : Anonymous classical Korean ghost novel. A cruel stepmother torments her two step-daughters. She skins a rat and puts in it the bed with Rose Flower and accuses the later of having a miscarriage. Out of shame, Rose Flower commits suicide by drowning in a lake. Her sister, Pink Lotus, learns of her suicide a dream. She rushes out to the suicide site and overcome with grief, also commits suicide. The two become a pair of vengeful ghosts who terrorize their village and a local magistrate. The magistrate calls on a heroic warrior, Chong Tong-u to help combat their supernatural forces. He speaks to the ghosts of the two girls and relays their story to the magistrate. The evil stepmother is executed, the father remarries a virtuous woman and the two girls are reborn to the same father.
This novel is called a “kongan” story in Korean which means a “public case.” It is meant as a cautionary tale and as an example of justice triumphing even under extraordinary circumstances. While Korean literary development paralleled the Chinese, examples of supernatural agencies in such stories are uncommon.
This novel was summarized at length in Zong In-Sob’s Folk Tales of Korea. He used the title “The Two Sisters, Rose and Lotus,” and like any good scholar, he de-emphasizes the role that the supernatural plays in the novel.
Chordewa : Hindu witch capable of turning into a cat. In her cat form, she can kill a human by licking its shadow.
Christian symbols : Christian symbols are frequently used in Japanese manga and anime to represent the exotic occult. The animated series, Shin Seiki Evangelion, is a perfect example of this, for it contains a overwhelming number of Christian symbols: angels, crosses and even the Spear of Longinius. Japanese horror manga artists are divided between those who use Christian symbols and lore and those who use traditional Japanese sources.
Chu, Yu : Chinese author (c. 1341-1427) of
didactic tales, some fantastic or supernatural. One translated into English is called “A Record of the Land of
the Blessed” (San shan fu ti chih), a gruesome tale of murder and torture. It’s from his story collection Chien tseng hsin hua (New Tales by the
Trimmed Lamp.)
Chuan Qi : (alternately Chuan-chi) This roughly translates as “Strange Stories” or “Accounts of the Extraodinary”. It is a collection of Chinese weird tales from the Tang Dynasty (618-907). It includes a noted magic mirror tale, “An Old Mirror” by Wang Du.
Chung Kuei : Chinese hero and demon queller. He is also known as Shoki in Japan.
Churel : Hindu evil spirits, usually thought to be ghost of a woman who died while pregnant. They prey on young men, draining their life force.
Confucius : Chinese philosopher Kong Fu Zi (551-479 BC). One of the most famous Chinese philosophical writers, he avoided writing about the supernatural while respectfully acknowledging its existence. In the Analects V!. xx, he writes “show respect to the gods and the spirits of the departed, but keep aloof from them.” Yuan Mei entitled his weird story collection, What the Master Would Not Discuss, referring to Confucian reticence on supernatural phenomena and wonders.
Corpse Rider : Traditional Japanese horror tale retold by Lafcadio Hearn in Shadowings (1900). This is yet another tale of fear of vengeance of the dead. Hearn writes, “the undying wish of a dying person for vengeance can burst asunder any tomb and rift the heaviest gravestone.” A man’s divorced wife is expected to terrorize him, so he enlists the aid of an inyoshi, an adept in spiritual magic. Thus the man has a terrifying experience as a corpse rider:
Hour after hour the man sat upon the corpse in black fear, -- and the hush of the night deepened and deepened about him till he screamed to break it. Instantly the body sprang beneath him, as to cast him off.
The original tale is from the Konseki Monogatari, a collection of medieval Japanese tales.
Cthulhu mythos : Story cycle based on the horror tales of American writer Howard Philips Lovecraft (1890-1937). For decades, the Japanese have written tales derived from his horror fantasies and his circle of friends. Lovecraft wrote about a fragile mankind floating in an island of ignorance in an indifferent and unfeeling universe. The Earth belonged to a pantheon of weird beings that would reclaim it from puny mankind some day. Lovecraft and his associates wrote tales revolving these beings and the imaginary occult books that held their horrifying secrets.
The most famous of these books is the dreaded Necronomicon. Reading more than a few pages will drive any man insane. The few extant copies of the book are kept under lock and key and are not to be consulted unless the world is in dire danger from the Elder Gods, the Deeps Ones, Cthulhu, Shug-niggarath or some other nameless, indescribably horrid entity.
Many Japanese fantasy and horror writers joined in to add their own brand of Cthulhu mythos stories to the fray. A series of home-brewed Cthulhu mythos books have appeared in Japan with no end in sight.
One of the key books in their Cthulhu mythos is Makai Suiko den (Shui-hu chan in the inferno) by Kurimoto Kaoru. It pits the Elder Gods against deities from Japanese traditional mythology with mankind caught in the middle of the conflict. This book introduced many Japanese readers to the Mythos. Another Kurimoto book, Makyou Yuugeki Tai (Guerilla for Hell) ties the popular Guin Saga series of novels into the Mythos. This book’s protagonist who is named after the author, who visits St Joseph’s Island in the South Pacific on a bizarre expedition and he encounters the mysterious “Moon Crusade,” adding yet another cult to the Mythos.
Another interesting writer is Yamamoto Hiroshi, author of the novelization of Diable de LaPlac, a computer Mythos RPG, also available in comic form by Meimu. The story is set in Newcam, USA in 1924 where a band of individuals including an American journalist and Japanese ESPer's explore a notorious haunted house. They wind up in a strange universe controlled by the famous French mathematician LaPlace. This book is also of interest for its references to the Lovecraft story, “Pickman’s Model.”
One noted Japanese author after another joined in the
mythos frenzy. One prominent mythos
writer is Kazami Jun, author of Cthulhu Opera. Yet another is Shinkuma
Noburu, author of Alhazreed no
gyakushu (Alhazred’s Revenge). Umehara
Katsumuni’s entry is a biological
horror thriller called Nijū
rasen no akuma (The Devil in Double-helix).
Then there’s an anthology of mythos horror stories called Cthulhu
kaii-roku (Cthulhu Mysterious Documents).
Contributors are a who’s-who of Japanese horror including Kikuchi Hideyuki, Sano Shiro, Konaka Chiaki,
Yamada Maraki, Asamatsu Ken,
Tomonari Junichi.
Yano Kentaro’s Mythos manga Lamia (The Legend of Evil Gods) has interesting twist. The story of Jun, a young high school student, mortally injured in a motorcycle accident. He recovers at a prodigious rate and appears to have acquired strange powers. The Greek legend of the Lamia meets modern Cthulhu mythos in this weird story published by Gakken Nora Comics.
Asamatsu Ken also edited a manga Mythos anthology called Youshin Kourin (Evil Gods Approach). It contains comic adaptations of six American weird tales including Lovecraft’s “The Temple,” Henry Kuttner and Robert Bloch’s “The Black Kiss”, “Far Below” by R.B. Johnson, Kuttner’s :Hydra” and Zealia Bishop’s “Medusa’s Coil.” (Ascii Comics)
Another entry in the Mythos manga realm is a collection of Lovecraft adaptations call Lovecraft no genso kaikikan (Lovecraft’s House of Illusions). It contains “The Hound,” “The Horror at Red Hook,” “The Music of Erich Zann,” “In the Vault,” “The Colour Out of Space,” and “The Outsider.” (Tairiku Shobu).
Cyclical Universe : The idea of Eternal Reoccurrence is far older than Nietzsche, for the ancient Chinese saw the universe as an ever-moving cycle. Chinese divination allows the querent to predict some of the changes going on around her with devices like the i-ching and Chinese oracle bones. Some interpreters of Chinese cosmology say that the Chinese believe the universe consists of a primal energy or substance called qi which is at once energy, material objects and intangible psychic energy. This energy is divided into yin and yang, the positive and negative energy.
Cyclops : The rather unpleasant conception of a one-eyed, Ulyssean being appears in the Chinese folklore and subsequently in Japanese legends. The Japanese god Ichimokuren is one such creature, capable of ending droughts with the appropriate supplication from the people. As an odd side note, a Chinese cyclops named Gorrah appears in the American Justice League comics.