Chapter IX: Yanari

Modern dictionaries ignore the uncanny significations of the word _Yanari_,--only telling us that it means the sound of the shaking of a house during an earthquake. But the word used to mean the noise of the shaking of a house moved by a goblin; and the invisible shaker was also called _Yanari_. When, without apparent cause, some house would shudder and creak and groan in the night, folk used to suppose that it was being shaken from without by supernatural malevolence.

Tokonoma ni
Ik['e]shi tachiki mo
Taor['e]-keri;
Yanari ni yama no
Ugoku kak['e]mono!

[_Even the live tree set in the alcove has fallen down; and
the mountains in the hanging picture tremble to the quaking
made by the Yanari!_[50]]

[Footnote 50: The _tokonoma_ in a Japanese room is a sort of ornamental recess or alcove, in which a picture is usually hung, and vases of flowers, or a dwarf tree, are placed.]