Greetings yokai fans!
It’s now August but I have one last yokai to share with you from July!
Today’s yokai took a while to finish because of all the tiny skulls. This was a satisfying one to finish, because it was the last sketch I had remaining from last October’s A-Yokai-A-Day. It’s also a very fun story, and I just love the way it ends.
I’ll share August’s yokai plans very soon. With Obon coming up, we’re right in the middle of some fun and scary yokai time, so I’ll dig around for a few fun and slightly scary ones. This weekend is the Fukui Gion Festival, and I will try to take some interesting photos to share here. Of course Kyoto’s Gion Festival is internationally known, but Gion Festivals are not exclusive to Kyoto. Just like in Kyoto, the Fukui Gion Festival is dedicated to Gozu Tenno, a tatarigami, and is dedicated to appease the evil gods in order that they will not bring disaster to the city. To hold you over until then, here’s an Edo Period illustration of Fukui’s Gion Matsuri:
Anyone, on to today’s yokai!
Mekurabe
http://yokai.com/mekurabe/
目競
めくらべ
TRANSLATION: staring contest
ALTERNATE NAMES: dokuro no kai (the phenomenon of skulls)
APPEARANCE: Mekurabe are giant mounds of skulls and severed heads which stare at people. They begin as masses of individual skulls, which roll around and around. Eventually they clump together and form into a massive skull-shaped mound.
INTERACTIONS: Mekurabe are only known for doing one thing: staring at people. If you win the staring contest, the skulls will vanish without a trace. If you lose the staring contest, what happens is not recorded.
ORIGIN: Mekurabe are famously described in The Tale of the Heike. Their name was invented later during the Edo Period, and mekurabe appears in Toriyama Sekien’s Konjaku hyakki shūi.
LEGEND: Taira no Kiyomori, the young general who had just recently conquered all of Japan, stepped out into his garden one morning to see an uncountable number of skulls rolling about, glaring at him. The surprised Kiyomori called for his guards, but nobody heard him.
As Kiyomori watched, the skulls began to gather together in the middle of the garden. They clumped together, rolling up on top of each other, and formed a single giant mass. The pile of skulls was shaped like an enormous skull close to 45 meters in size.
The mass of skulls glared at Kiyomori out of its countless eye sockets. Kiyomori took a breath and steadied himself. He glared back at the skulls with all of his resolve.
Finally, the mass of skulls crumbled apart. The skulls melted like a snowflake in the sun, and vanished without a trace.