Week 7 Story: Curiosity Kills

Author's Note: For this week, I decided to retell the story of "The Goblin of Adachigahara." In this story, a Buddhist monk, weary from travel, stops at the cabin of an old woman and asks to stay the night. Of course, the woman is in fact the titular, man-eating "Goblin of Adachigahara," which the monk discovers after looking in the back room she instructs him not to and finding her victims. The monk takes off running, praying to Buddha, and the goblin sets off in pursuit. Just as he is about to be caught, day breaks and the goblin disappears. 

The goblin disguised as an old woman seemed to me to be very similar to the famous Baba Yaga of Slavic folklore. This retelling takes place in the Caucasus mountains as an Orthodox monk travels to a hermitage and unknowingly stops at Baba Yaga's cabin for the night.

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Night fell rapidly in that valley in the Caucasus, courtesy of the mountains cutting off the horizons to the East and West. The monk had made good enough time despite this and figured he could make the hermitage he was traveling to by noon tomorrow, provided he left early enough. Right now, though, he was tired, and he needed to find a place to stop and rest, preferably one with a roof for fear of the clouds currently blotting out most of the moonlight.

As luck would have it, he had not walked long when he saw a bit of warm light breaking through a grove of trees. "This must be a house!" he thought, "I will go see if I might be allowed to stay the night." As he passed through the trees into the clearing at the center, the monk was greeted by the sight of a gnarled and ancient-looking cabin. On its porch sat a similarly gnarled and ancient-looking old woman, knitting away with a pair of large, bone needles. "Извините, Бабушка! I hate to intrude, but it has gotten quite dark quite fast and I am worried if I do not stop for the night, I may become lost."

"А жаль...I'm afraid I do not have much room for you to stay here." the old woman replied.

"I'm sorry, it is just that I do not know how I will fare without a shelter if those clouds decide to rain on us tonight." the priest pleaded. "I am perfectly content to sleep on the floor, even on the porch, and I will be gone at first light tomorrow. You won't even know I was here."

"Ah well...I suppose you can stay, there is space enough on the kitchen floor." the old woman said, setting her knitting down and standing up, motioning for the monk to follow her as she entered the cabin. "I have some borscht in the pot over the fire, it should be just about done now if you would like to have dinner with me. I always make a bit too much."

The monk gratefully accepted her offer and the two sat down by the fire to eat. After they had finished, the old woman made tea and they sat and talked for some time. Eventually though, the fire began to dim. "Ah, I will go fetch us some more wood." the old woman said. The monk asked that she let him do it as he was younger and stronger, but she insisted that, as he was her guest, she would go get the firewood. Before she left, however, she instructed him "While I'm gone, feel free to help yourself to more tea or some crackers, but don't look in the back closet!"

That struck him as a bit odd, but before the monk could ask why, the old woman had slipped out the door and was gone. He shrugged his shoulders and went back to sipping his tea, he didn't need to know what was so bad about the closet, probably just a rodent problem given the age of the cabin. As he sat there, though, much more time passed than he had anticipated and, as the fire died out, his curiosity began to get the better of him.

"I'll just take a quick peek," he thought, "it's not like she'll ever know, and I'll only open the door a crack so that if it is rodents, they don't get out." With that, the monk walked over to the door and peeked inside. What he saw caused his blood to curdle as he slammed the door shut in shock. It was only a glimpse, but he was sure of what he had seen: piles upon piles of bones, human bones and what looked like centuries of bloodstains. 

The monk stood there in the kitchen for a moment, frozen with fear, but slowly he came back to his senses. He needed to leave now, and fast, before he joined those skeletons himself. The monk flung open the front door and set out at a full sprint. The moon had come out from behind the clouds while he was in the cabin and the path was well lit. Not moments after he had cleared the grove surrounding the hut he heard a thunderous creaking from behind him. Whipping around towards the source of the noise, the monk could hardly believe his eyes: the cabin stood there on two legs, similar to those of a chicken, pushing its way through the tree line. The old woman sat atop it, looking somehow more feral and beastly than she had previously. Spotting him, she cried out in rage "I told you not to look!"

The monk gave no response, nor did he wait for her to give chase. He turned and ran as fast as he could, and the crashing footprints of the house confirmed that she had indeed given chase. The footsteps grew nearer and nearer and the monk carried on without slowing, repeating the Lord's prayer and hoping to God, for it was all that he could do. "Господи помилуй. Господи помилуй. Господи помилуй." he repeated over and over again. Just as the monk's legs gave out and he felt the end upon him, the barest hint of sunlight broke over the mountains, and the footsteps stopped. 

Rolling onto his back, the monk saw that the house had disappeared and the old woman was nowhere to be seen. Climbing up to his knees and looking to the heavens, the monk thanked God for delivering him. He would definitely pick a different route for his trip back.

Baba Yaga House. Source: Flickr

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Story Source: Japanese Fairy Tales by Yei Theodora Ozaki