Chapter 9 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

Ikéshi tachiki mo

Taoré-keri;

Yanari ni yama no

Ugoku kakémono!

[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]