A-Yokai-A-Day: How Tanba Sarugaku Was Caught by a Henge

The yokai in tonight’s story is only referred to as a henge. Like bakemono from a few days ago, henge is a fairly generic term for a monster and doesn’t really reference anything specific. The word comes from the word for “transform,” and it is frequently used to refer to monstrous apparitions created by tanuki or kitsune, but is not strictly limited to those either. The licking reminds me of shitanaga uba, but this yokai is a young girl, not an old hag.

Whatever it is, I really like this yokai. It totally creeps me out.The plain and simple way the creature is described as licking the baby away to nothing, like a tootsie roll pop, gives me the shivers. It doesn’t over-describe, where many English-language authors would take the the time to describe in exceeding detail. The way the horror is just limited to one brief sentence leaves so much to the imagination. This one and the bone-sucking monster are perhaps my two monsters in this book.

Also, the ending to this tale is just horrible. It’s so sudden, and so meaningless. Why did this happen? And how do you recover from an experience like this?

Terrifying.

How Tanba Sarugaku Was Caught by a Henge

Tanba Sarugaku, along with twenty or so people including his wife, children, and disciples, were on their way to Kyōto. One night the sun set while they were in the mountains, and they had no choice but to spend the night there. His wife was in the month of childbirth, and that night she gave birth to their child, so they were busy taking care of many things until dawn broke.

As the night gave way to dim light, a woman of around twenty years old passed by. Seeing her, Sarugaku called her over to him: “I don’t know who you are, but your timing is perfect. I hate to ask, but could you please help hold this child for a while?”

She replied, “That would be no problem.”

She took the child in her arms, and everyone was able to get some sleep. The woman began slowly licking the child’s head. When Sarugaku woke up, he gazed closely over at the woman, and noticed that she had completely licked the child up.

Sarugaku was shocked, and he woke up his disciples. All twenty of them got up immediately, but no sooner had they done so when something grabbed each of them out of nowhere and dragged them up into the sky. Sarugaku was left there alone. Then a raspy voice came from the sky: “Take that last man too!”

The woman replied, “I thought I should take him too, but I can’t because he is carrying a fine sword.”

Then the voice from the sky said, “If you can’t take him, then help me! Help me!”

The woman vanished into thin air, and Sarugaku was left dumbfounded. He waited around for dawn to break, but by the time it did, it was already 4 pm.

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