Step into the eerie world of old Japan with Hoichi the Earless, one of the most famous ghost stories from Lafcadio Hearn's classic collection of Japanese tales. In this retelling, you'll meet Hōichi, a blind young musician whose skill with the biwa is so great that even the dead come to listen. When ghostly samurai summon him night after night to play the story of a great sea battle, his life falls into terrible danger.
Our graded version of the 耳なし芳一 (Miminashi Hōichi) legend is written in accessible B1 intermediate Japanese – roughly what a confident learner with a couple of years of study can handle. You'll pick up useful vocabulary for ghosts, temples, music, and battle along the way, all in naturally flowing Japanese.
Tap any word for instant translation help, listen to the full story audio to train your ear, and review the lesson notes that follow the text. Everything in this reader is completely free – no sign-up, no locked chapters. Just you, Hōichi, and the ghosts.
昔々、日本のある町に、芳一（ほういち）という男がいました。芳一は目が見えませんでしたが、琵琶（びわ）をのがとても上手でした。
芳一はお寺に住んでいて、和尚（おしょうさん）や寺の男の人たちと一緒に暮らしていました。毎日、琵琶の練習をして、みんなをいました。
ある夏の夜のことです。芳一がお寺の縁側（えんがわ）に座っていると、だれかが呼びました。
「芳一さま、芳一さま。ちょっと来てください」
「だれですか？」と芳一は聞きました。でもはありません。ただ、風が吹いた気がしました。
「ある方が、琵琶を聞きたがっておられます。今夜、私について来てください」
芳一は少しですが、琵琶を、その人について行きました。は変でした。水の音のような、ちゃぷちゃぷという音がしたのです。
ついた場所は、とても大きな屋敷（やしき）でした。「ここで待っていてください」と、声が言いました。
芳一は琵琶を弾き始めました。壇ノ浦（だんのうら）の戦（たたかい）の歌です。昔、源氏（げんじ）と平家（へいけ）が海で戦った、悲しい物語です。
琵琶の音が夜の空に。すると、だれかが泣いているのが聞こえました。
「これは……平家の御方（おんかた）だ」
家の中に、たくさんの幽霊（ゆうれい）がいたのです。海で死んだ武士（ぶし）たち、悲しむ女の人たち。みんな芳一の琵琶に集まって来ました。
次の夜も、その次の夜も、だれかが芳一を迎えに来ました。そして芳一は、毎晩屋敷で琵琶を弾きました。
しかし、お寺の和尚さんは心配になりました。芳一の顔色が悪く、だんだん弱っていったからです。
「芳一、毎晩どこへ行くのだ？」
「え……毎晩？ 私は二、三回行っただけです」
和尚さんは驚きました。そして、その夜、寺の男の人に言いました。「芳一の後をつけてみなさい」
男が追うと、芳一のはお寺の外の墓地（ぼち）にありました。芳一は一人で、暗い中で琵琶を弾いていたのです。周りには、墓しかありません。
「あれは屋敷じゃない……墓地だ！」
男は震（ふる）えながら、お寺に帰って、和尚さんに全部話しました。
和尚さんは静かに言いました。「芳一を呼んでいるのは、平家の幽霊だ。このままでは、芳一は幽霊に連れて行かれてしまう」
「どうすればいいのですか？」
「芳一の体に、お経（きょう）を書くのだ。そうすれば、幽霊には見えなくなる」
その夜、和尚さんと男たちは、芳一の体にお経を書きました。最後に残ったのは、耳だけでした。
「耳には書けない。悪いが、耳だけは気をつけるのだぞ」
「はい、わかりました」
夜が更（ふ）けました。いつものように、声が芳一を呼びに来ました。
「芳一さま、芳一さま」
でも、今夜の芳一の体にはお経が書いてあります。幽霊には、芳一の体が見えません。見えるのは、耳だけでした。
「あれ？ 芳一さまの姿が見えない。でも……耳だけがある」
幽霊は怒りました。
「それなら、この耳を持って行くしかない！」
芳一は激しい痛みを感じて、気を失いました。
朝になって、和尚さんは芳一がのを見つけました。耳がありません。血が出ていました。
「芳一！ すまない。耳のお経を書く時間がなかったのだ」
芳一はゆっくりました。痛かったですが、生きていました。そして、もう幽霊は来ませんでした。
この話は、町中に広まりました。
「耳のない琵琶弾きがいるそうだ」
「あれが有名な、耳なし芳一だ」
人々は芳一を「耳なし芳一」と呼ぶようになりました。決して悪い意味ではありません。芳一の琵琶は、有名になりました。
芳一はこれからも、お寺で琵琶を弾き続けました。その琵琶の音は、生きている人にも、幽霊にも、届いたと言います。
そして、静かな夜には、今でもどこかで、芳一の琵琶の音が聞こえるそうです。ちゃぷ……ちゃぷ……。
Long ago, in a town in Japan, there was a young man named Hoichi. Hoichi could not see, but he was very good at playing the biwa.
Hoichi lived at a temple, together with the priest and the temple men. Every day he practiced the biwa and entertained everyone.
One summer night, as Hoichi was sitting on the temple porch, someone called out.
"Lord Hoichi, Lord Hoichi. Please come with me for a moment."
"Who is it?" Hoichi asked. But there was no reply. He only felt a cold wind blow past.
"A noble person wishes to hear the biwa. Please follow me tonight."
Hoichi was a little scared, but he took his biwa and followed the person. The footsteps sounded strange-like the splashing of water, chap, chap.
The place they arrived at was a very grand mansion. "Please wait here," the voice said.
Hoichi began to play his biwa. It was the song of the battle of Dan-no-ura-a sad story of long ago, when the Genji and the Heike clans fought at sea.
The sound of the biwa spread through the night sky. Then, he heard someone weeping.
"These are... the Heike nobles."
Inside the house were many ghosts: samurai who had died at sea, grieving women. They all gathered around Hoichi's biwa.
The next night, and the night after that, someone came to fetch Hoichi. And every night, Hoichi played the biwa at the mansion.
But the temple priest grew worried, because Hoichi looked pale and was growing weaker and weaker.
"Hoichi, where do you go every night?"
"Huh... every night? I've only been two or three times."
The priest was shocked. That night, he said to one of the temple men, "Follow Hoichi and see where he goes."
The man followed, and found Hoichi in the graveyard outside the temple. Hoichi was alone, playing his biwa in the darkness. Around him, there was nothing but graves.
"That's no mansion... it's the graveyard!"
Trembling, the man returned to the temple and told the priest everything.
The priest said quietly, "It is the ghosts of the Heike calling Hoichi. If this continues, they will take him away."
"What should we do?"
"Write sutras on Hoichi's body. Then the ghosts will not be able to see him."
That night, the priest and the men wrote sutras on Hoichi's body. Only his ears were left.
"I cannot write on your ears. I'm sorry, but you must be careful with your ears."
"Yes, I understand."
The night deepened. As always, the voice came to call Hoichi.
"Lord Hoichi, Lord Hoichi."
But that night, sutras were written on Hoichi's body. The ghosts could not see his body. Only his ears were visible.
"What? I cannot see Lord Hoichi. But... there are only his ears."
The ghost grew angry.
"Then I have no choice but to take these ears!"
Hoichi felt a terrible pain and lost consciousness.
When morning came, the priest found Hoichi lying there. His ears were gone. He was bleeding.
"Hoichi! Forgive me. There was no time to write the sutra on your ears."
Hoichi slowly woke up. It hurt, but he was alive. And the ghosts never came again.
Word of this story quickly spread throughout the town.
"They say there's a biwa player with no ears."
"That's the famous Mimi-nashi Hoichi-Hoichi the Earless."
People came to call Hoichi "Mimi-nashi Hoichi"-Hoichi the Earless. It was never meant in a bad way. Hoichi's biwa playing became more and more famous.
Hoichi continued to play the biwa at the temple. They say his music reached the living and the ghosts alike.
And on quiet nights, they say you can still hear the sound of Hoichi's biwa somewhere, even now. Chap... chap...
This story is told in the plain (dictionary) form - ありました, 弾き始めました, 泣いているのが聞こえました - which is the standard voice for Japanese storytelling, news, and written narrative. At B1, you're moving beyond polite conversation into this narrative register, and ghost stories are perfect practice because the plain form creates distance and tension.
Notice how the tense shifts carry suspense: 芳一が座っていると (was sitting when...) sets the scene in the progressive, then だれかが呼びました (someone called) breaks in with a sudden completed action. That 〜ていると + past-tense pattern is a classic way Japanese builds 'and then, out of nowhere...' moments.
- 〜気がしました ('I had the feeling that...') softens a strange perception - perfect for horror ambiguity.
- 〜ように ('as if') appears in 水の音のような音 - comparing something to something else you can't quite name.
- 〜ながら in 震えながら ('while trembling') shows two actions happening at once.
Ghost stories are a goldmine of useful intermediate vocabulary. The word 幽霊 (yūrei) means ghost or spirit - note the kanji 霊, which you'll meet in words like 霊園 (cemetery). The setting gives you 墓地 (bochi, graveyard), お寺 (otera, temple), and 屋敷 (yashiki, a grand mansion or estate).
For describing fear and deterioration, the story offers 怖い (kowai, scary), 震える (furueru, to tremble), 顔色が悪い (kaoiro ga warui, to look pale/unwell), and 弱っていく (yowatte iku, to grow weaker). The phrase 気を失う (ki o ushinau, to lose consciousness / faint) is genuinely useful in everyday Japanese too.
- 幽霊 (yūrei) - ghost; 海で死んだ武士 - samurai who died at sea.
- 夜が更ける (yo ga fukeru) - 'the night deepens', a lovely idiom for late hours.
- たちまち (tachimachi) - 'in no time, instantly', great for how rumors spread.
- ちゃぷちゃぷ - an onomatopoeia for lapping water; Japanese sound words do real storytelling work here.
The scariness of this tale comes from small linguistic signals rather than dramatic language. The mysterious caller uses honorifics - 芳一さま, おられます - which makes the ghost sound polite and high-class, an unsettling contrast with its true nature. When speech style doesn't match the situation, Japanese readers feel it immediately.
Also watch 〜たがっている (聞きたがっておられます, 'wants to listen'): the 〜たがる form expresses a third party's desire. And the和尚's warning 「耳だけは気をつけるのだぞ」 uses the emphatic sentence-ending のだぞ - a strong, masculine tone that tells us this advice matters.
- 〜たがる / 〜たがっている shows someone else's wants (not your own).
- のだぞ adds force and urgency to a warning or explanation.
- 〜しかない ('the only option is...') in この耳を持って行くしかない - chillingly logical.
Try retelling the story's turning point in your own words: why did the ghosts keep coming, what did the monk write, and why were the ears left exposed? Retelling forces you to reuse the plain-form narrative and the key vocabulary while it's still fresh.
Then listen again to the story audio and shadow the ghost's lines - the polite, eerie 「ちょっと来てください」 is wonderful pronunciation practice. Notice how the onomatopoeia ちゃぷ……ちゃぷ…… lingers at the end. In Japanese ghost stories, the last sound is often the one that follows you home.
- Retell the story in 5-8 plain-form sentences, focusing on the monk's plan.
- Shadow the dialogue aloud, matching the polite-creepy tone.
- Pick three new words (e.g., 幽霊, 墓地, 気を失う) and write your own spooky sentence with each.
耳なし芳一 (Miminashi Hōichi) - Hoichi the Earless comes from the Japanese / Lafcadio Hearn tradition and is best known as a ghost story. This Yak Yacker article is an original learner retelling based on Lafcadio Hearn, Kwaidan, 1904; public domain, so the wording here is simplified for modern learners rather than copied from one old edition.
Older printings, translations, and retellings of this story can vary quite a bit. The original audience was usually adult/general, but this version is adapted for B1 Intermediate learners studying Japanese. Horror/ghost story; highly memorable.
If you want to look into the source tradition, start with Project Gutenberg.
If you want to keep going, browse more in our Japanese section and review the JLPT N3 Japanese Vocabulary. After that, try Essential Japanese Phrases for another useful next step.