When I see a spider at night…

In rainy season, I often see spiders around my neighborhood in the morning and at night. What kind of feeling do people from other countries have about spiders? Oh, there’s a story (also a movie) called “Charlotte’s Web” by E. B. White!

In Japan, there is also a story called “The Spider’s Thread” by Akutagawa Ryunosuke. I love this story, because it appears to me that the story sheds light on a man’s true nature, kind of. (If you want to read a part of the story, click here.) This story is for children, but I don’t think they can understand the whole story thoroughly. This story was once said to have been influenced by a short story from “Brothers Karamazov” by Fyodor Dostoevski or by one of the stories in “Christ Legends”, by Selma Lagerlöf (Selma Ottilia Lagerloef, a novel prize winner). But, in fact, it is known that when Akutagawa wrote this story, he was influenced by the work Karma (by Paul Carus), translated by Suzuki Daisetsu, (a.k.a. D.T.Suzuki). Well, do you know Suzuki Daisetsu, a famous religion scholar, is from Kanazawa? If you want to know more about him, click here

By the way, in the story of “The Spider’s Thread”, Buddha gave the spider’s thread to Kandata since he helped a spider one day.

But!
Once I tried to do the same thing at night, but my grandma told me not to do that and said, “Kill it!”
According to her, it doesn’t bring good luck. On the other hand, a spider seen in the morning is not whammy at all, so she told me not to kill it.

Do you have any interesting stories or memories of spiders?

-Mu