Tonight’s story is a tale that pops up time and time again in almost every prefecture. It’s the story of kurote, or the hairy hand that reaches up out of the toilet to stroke your butt while you do your business. Clearly Edo period people enjoyed potty humor as much as modern people!

I particularly enjoy this story because of the logical, even sarcastic tone it treats the monster with.

Once again my wife was kind enough to do the illustration while my arm is broken. I will have an illustration for you tomorrow, however!

The Bakemono of the Outhouse in Kasamari, Ōmi Province

In a place called Konse in Ōmi Province, there is a rural village called Kasamari. In the outhouse at a certain somebody’s house in this village, a bakemono supposedly lived, and nobody would go there. Whenever the wind blew, a hairy hand would stroke their bottom.

One person heard about this and decided he would go and see this monster for himself. He went into the outhouse and positioned himself above the toilet. Just when as the wind blew, sure enough, the bakemono’s hairy hand eagerly stroked his bottom. The man immediately thrust his hand down into the toilet to seize it, but it was a plume of pampas grass.

Because it was the countryside, pampas grass grew beneath the outhouse. When the wind blew, the plumes fluttered the wind and everybody thought that what they felt on their bottoms was a hairy hand caressing them. After that, the pampas grass was trimmed, and the stories about the bakemono stopped.