Note 63 — A LETTER FROM JAPAN

Footnote 63:

(return)

Ayashigé is a noun formed from the adjective ayashi, "suspicious," "strange," "supernatural," "doubtful." The word kagé signifies both "light" and "shadow,"—and is here used with double suggestiveness. The vegetable oil used in the old Japanese lamps used to be obtained from the nuts of the tsubaki. The reader should remember that the expression "ancient tsubaki" is equivalent to the expression "goblin-tsubaki,"—the tsubaki being supposed to turn into a goblin-tree only when it becomes old.