Creepy Story Time: "By the Japanese Sea" -- Lafcadio Hearn

On the final days of Obon, fishermen along Japan’s western coast once believed the sea belonged to the dead. In this episode, I read Lafcadio Hearn’s eerie and beautiful essay “By the Japanese Sea.” Along the journey, we encounter drowned spirits rising from the waves, cats carried aboard fishing boats to ward off ghosts, delicate straw vessels made for lost souls, and a haunted futon whispering…