Japanese Folk Tale

9. The Power of Words
141. A Dialogue with a Ghost
A doctor came to a certain village in the mountains and decided
to stay, but there was no house for him. It was decided that he would
stay in a vacant temple a little way off in the mountains. In the night
something came to the outside doors by the porch and climbed up. In a
voice that sounded like a broken bell, it shouted, "Suteten-koten on
the doctor's head! Suteten-koten on the doctor's head." It pounded on
the doors until they nearly broke. The frightened doctor crawled deep
into his quilts. In the morning he found footprints of a big animal all
over the porch. When he told the villagers, they said it was probably a
prank of a bad old badger. That night a number of young men from the
village decided to stay at the temple. They secured the doors with
poles and sat around the hearth to wait. Something came again in the
middle of the night and pounded on the doors. It shouted, "Sutetenkoten
on the doctor's head!" They matched it from the inside with,
"Suteten-koten on the head of what says that!" The badger and the
young men exchanged shouts and made a great uproar. After that
continued for some time, the badger seemed to give up and remained
silent. The next morning they found the old badger. He had been so
humiliated at being outshouted that he had torn his belly open with his
teeth and died. Then they all made badger soup and ate him.
Yamanashi, Nishiyatsushiro-gun