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262 HONDA THE SAMURAI.
fire, but now turned upside down, serving as a weird
three-pointed crown, still further exaggerated her
apparent height. On her breast hung a silvered
metal mirror on which the moon-beams danced and
shot out lengthened rays. The strangest part of her
equipment was in her hands and mouth. The fingers
of her right hand grasped a blacksmith's hammer,
and in her left was a pair of manikins or rude
dolls made out of rice-straw. Out of her mouth
protruded three long
iron nails and in front of her
belt hung a little bag, containing a further supply.
By the time she arrived in the open fronting the
shrine the watchers could see her eyes glittering
with rage and her whole frame trembling with ex-
citement.
Kneeling before the god
Fudo she took off the
earthen tripod, and laying the two straw images on
the stone step before the shrine and then the hammer
and nails, she bowed her head, clapped her
hands tightly together, and offered up this prayer :
" O awful deity, in thy name I invoke vengeance
upon the faithless one and his partner. On thy
sacred tree I lay these effigies. Let not the tree be
harmed, but transfer the hurt of the wood to the
bodies of the victims, and wreak thy vengeance on
the offenders that they may pine and die."
Rising from her devotions she approached the tree
sacred to the god Fudo and decorated it with the
straw circlets. Pressing one of the effigies upon the
stumps of the old nails already on the tree, she laid
the other upon the top of it, holding them down with