Drinking by the Campfire in the Mountain | Japanese Horror Stories & Urban Legends

∧∧∧ Stories About Mountains Part 3 ∧∧∧

649: Anonymous Behind You... (2003/11/18 18:01)

This is something that happened to me.
I’m a third-year university student now, and this took place not long after I became a sophomore.

When I went back to my hometown for the first time in a while and finished catching up with my family,
I suddenly felt like visiting the mountain near my old neighborhood where I used to play as a kid.

It was a bit chilly outside, so I grabbed a bottle of whisky and started walking, sipping as I went.
When I entered the mountain, I was happy to see that nothing had changed since those days.

As I wandered around in a pleasant haze,
I heard a man’s voice from the bushes a little way off:

“Hey, why don’t you come over here and have a drink?”

The area around the bushes was faintly lit—someone had built a small campfire (takibi, a traditional Japanese outdoor fire).
Maybe because I was a bit drunk, I didn’t think it was suspicious and went over.

There was a man sitting alone by the fire, grilling fish.
He seemed amused by the whisky I offered him—it was probably unusual for him—and he liked it so much
that he started telling me all sorts of old stories while offering me the grilled fish.

The fish was delicious, and his stories were fascinating.
I remember feeling genuinely happy and relaxed there.

After a while, the man said,

“You should be heading home soon.”

So I told him,

“You can have the rest of the whisky,”

and stood up to leave.
Then, with a big smile, he gave me a bunch of fish and wild vegetables (sansai, edible plants gathered in the mountains).

It was only then that I really saw his face—and realized he had only one eye.
But strangely, I didn’t feel afraid.
I didn’t even know why I hadn’t noticed it earlier.

Later, when I gave the wild vegetables to my grandmother and told her what had happened,
she said it must have been a mountain god (yama-no-kami, a deity or spirit believed to inhabit mountains in Japanese folklore*).

She smiled and said,

“You met something good.”

And I thought, “Ah, so that’s why he liked Western liquor so much,”
and couldn’t help laughing.

I think I’ll take another bottle of whisky and visit again sometime.

653: Anonymous Behind You... (2003/11/18 19:13)
>>649
That’s a beautiful story.
If you don’t mind, could you tell us what kinds of stories the mountain god told you?

654: 649 (2003/11/18 20:21)
>>653
He talked about how people used to live in and around that mountain long ago.

Like a parent and child gathering wild plants,
and the kid falling and crying while the parent frantically comforted them—
just small, ordinary things like that.

He acted out the scenes with gestures, playing both the parent and the child.
He was quite the performer, honestly. lol

While he was talking, it didn’t feel strange at all—
it just felt like chatting with an ordinary old man.
So maybe it was just a trick of the light, or I mis-saw because I was drunk.

But when he told the story about the child, he mentioned a kimono tearing,
so maybe he really was a god, and those stories were from long ago.
If that’s true, I’d like to believe it.

∧∧∧ Stories About Mountains Part 5 ∧∧∧

444: Anonymous Behind You... (2003/12/29 23:20)

I once posted—maybe back in Part 2—about drinking with a one-eyed old man (god?) in the mountains.
Well, I have a follow-up to that story now. lol

I’m posting this from my grandma’s house in the countryside.
Last night, I took another bottle of whisky and went back to the mountain.

I didn’t meet him this time,
but in the same spot as before, I found an empty whisky bottle and a bunch of fresh mountain vegetables placed neatly together.

The bottle was polished so clean it gleamed,
though the label was a little peeled.
The vegetables looked freshly picked—the leaves still crisp and moist—
so at first I thought maybe someone else had gathered them.
But there was no sign of anyone around.

So I figured, “It must’ve been that old man again,”
left the whisky there,
and carried the wild vegetables home. lol