October has arrived and Spooky Season is upon us! Welcome to another year’s season of A-Yokai-A-Day! Every day this month I will translate, illustrate, and post one spooky Japanese folktale on this site. Feel free to join me in sharing yokai online using the #ayokaiaday hashtag!

This year continues where last year left off: the Edo period story collection called Shokoku hyakumonogatari, or “100 Tales from Various Provinces.” This book was published by an anonymous author in 1677, and is in the public domain. Scans of the book are available online, but the old script and archaic language is difficult to read, so I am also making use of digital OCR tools to transcribe the text, as well as a modern Japanese translation of the book by Shimura Kunihiro.

As far as I am aware, Shokoku hyakumonogatari has never been translated into English, although some of the stories have appeared in other publications. So this may be the first time at least some of these stories have been read outside of Japan!

Tonight’s story takes place at a very famous site in Kyoto, which visitors to Japan may be familiar with: Sanjūsangendō. The story pattern is a famous one, and there are many variations of this one all over Japan, so you may have heard another version of this somewhere else. There are a few words I chose not to translate in tonight’s story, because they don’t have good English equivalents (or I just prefer them in Japanese):

bakemono – a generic term for a monster; tonight’s story never specifically names what creature is responsible for the haunting

rōnin – an unemployed, landless member of the warrior caste; generally not a very respectable thing to be

chigo – an adolescent page boy or acolyte, often dressed and made up to look like a beautiful girl, and often kept in a pederastic relationship with an older man

How the Power of Sake Overcame a Bakemono

People do not go to the Great Buddha of Sanjūsangendō after 4 pm because of the presence of a bakemono. When the emperor heard of this, he put up a public notice declaring that if anyone defeated the monster, they would be granted anything they wished.

A certain drunkard rōnin went before the emperor and declared, “I shall subdue this monster.” Then he filled a bottle gourd with sake, went to Sanjūsangendō and waited in a corner of the hall. Sure enough, in the dead of night, a nearly three meter tall priest, with eyes shining like the sun and moon, reached out and tried to grab the rōnin with its rake-like hands.

The rōnin immediately lowered his head to the floor and said, “Are you the bakemono-sama that I have heard so much about? Please allow me to introduce myself.”

Hearing this, the bakemono let out a dreadful laugh: “Well, well, aren’t you a funny thing. I was going to eat you in one bite, but I’ll hold off for a moment. So, why did you come here?”

The rōnin replied, “I came here for some reason; but Master Bakemono, I have heard that you are able to transform into many things. Would you show me by transforming into a beautiful noblewoman?”

“You are a clever one. I will transform as you wish, and then I will eat you in one bite,” said the bakemono, and then he transformed into a giant noblewoman.

The rōnin replied, “Well now, this is interesting! Could you also transform into a chigo?” And the monster transformed into the form of a beautiful chigo.

“Well that is just wonderful!” said the rōnin. “Next could you transform into an oni?”

The monster became a three meter tall oni and waved his horns around in the air.

The rōnin said, “Master Bakemono, you are a skilled artist! You can transform into anything you wish. But, how about turning into something small like a dried plum?

The bakemono said, “If I turn into a dried plum, will you let me eat you already?”

“You don’t even need to ask!” replied the rōnin.

“Then I will show you,” said the monster. And he transformed into a tiny dried plum and rolled around on the floor.

“What a marvelous transformation! Climb up onto my hand!” said the rōnin, putting out his hand. The plum rolled onto the palm of the rōnin’s hand, and he popped it straight into his mouth, chewed it up, and washed it down with seven or eight drinks from his bottle gourd. Then he scurried away in a drunken stupor.

“I subdued the bakemono!” the rōnin declared to the emperor. The emperor was overjoyed, and he awarded the rōnin a generous fief to rule over. This is truly the power of sake.