Shitai and O’lwa

This is a story of darkest woe.

In ancient Japan there lived a vicious husband called Shitai who by his actions, turned his wife into a ghost. His unfortunate wife’s name was O’lwa and he murdered her because he desired another woman. His wife had barely risen from child birth when her deceitful husband Shitai poisoned which caused her hair to fall out in bloody handfuls, her eyes to bulge from their sockets and her pretty mouth to blacken. With certain death overcoming her she realized to her utter horror that her husband had poisoned her. In her despair, she killed her newborn and herself.

Shitai felt no remorse, for now he could do as he wished, or so he thought. He soon found that his dirty deed had a terrifying price.

With a ghoul’s fury, O’lwa appeared to him everywhere as a furious spirit.

Everything he looked at assumed the staring ghostly face of O’lwa mouthing curses at the deceitful geezer. If he walked in the garden he would find her there wailing over the lifeless body of their child.

Her bitter accusations sounded ceaselessly in his ears.

Defiant and undeterred, Shitai married his young mistress thinking that O’lwa would realize the futility of further hauntings.

On the day of his wedding, he lifted his lover’s bridal veil only to find O’lwa’s ghostly image looking back at him in ghoulish disgust.

Instantly, Shitai drew his sword and beheaded the terrifying specter. Silence fell on the gathering as to everyone’s total dismay he had murdered his bride, not the ghost.


Bob Angeles from Scunthorpe UK