Take-onna

Only about one week left until Halloween! I feel like I have Halloween fever now, having been painting monsters for so long. I’m starting to see yokai in my sleep! Of course, it certainly doesn’t help much that all the while I am painting, I am listening to Halloween web radio or watching horror movies. They say that when you paint, your emotions are imbued into the artwork, and I find that to be true when I am happy or angry or sad… so if I can keep myself at a constant level of scared-ness, that should translate well into my paintings too, right?? Or maybe it will just cause some kind of psychological trauma…

Anyway, I decided to have a bit of fun with today’s yokai and paint her on a different-sized shikishi. This longer shape is called a tanzaku, and I used them last year to paint the five Hyakki Yako panels.  Of course, the shape of today’s yokai certainly works nicely on this tall type of board.

Taka-onna

Today’s yokai is another aptly-named one: taka-onna, meaning “tall woman.” (Another reading of her name can be taka-jo, but the meaning is the same.) Her origins are somewhat obscure and come from a few different sources, but in all the stories there are a few key similarities. She appears as a normal woman some of the time, but when she shows her monster form, she elongates her body up to a few meters tall. Her favorite activity in peering into 2nd story windows and scaring whomever is inside. She is always malevolent, and either homely or quite ugly.

Taka-onna is probably most well-known from Toriyama Sekien’s illustration of a woman stretched out to a 2-story-tall height and peeking into a brothel in a red-light district. Like yesterday’s yokai, I guess prostitute monsters were popular in the Edo period. Unfortunately, other than the picture and the name, Sekien tells us nothing at all about her.

Other accounts of taka-onna don’t necessarily put them outside of a brothel, but their actions are basically the same: stretching their bodies like rubber bands and peeking into 2nd story windows.

In one story, a rich farmer notices his 5-year old son has gone missing. He orders his servants to search for him, but over a few days, one-by-one his servants go missing too. Eventually he realizes that his wife is behind the disappearances, as she has been eating the servants! He witnesses her hiding out in his well, and she is able to stretch all the way from the bottom, and out the top. Being a smart farmer, he ran away from the house and never saw her again.

In a few other accounts from other prefectures, she doesn’t do anything harmful other than peeping and being generally creepy.

Anyway, murderous or not, it would certainly cause quite a fright to anyone thinking they were safe and alone on the 2nd floor of their home, when all of a sudden they notice a hideous, haggish woman has been staring at them for who-knows-how-long! |

Take-onna

ハロウィーンまで残すところ後１週間になりました！ずっと妖怪を描き続けてきて夢に妖怪が出てくるようにもなって、なんだかハロウィーン熱に侵されているような感じです。ずっとハロウィーンウェブラジオを聞いて（ハロウィーンシーズンには怖い話をずっと放送するラジオがあります）ホラー映画も見ています。

絵には画家の感情が投影されると言われます。私は自分が楽しい時、悲しい時に描いた絵を見て、なるほどその通りだと実感しました。という事は・・・私が恐怖心を抱き続けられていれば、このプロジェクトの絵は恐怖心を誘う事ができるという事でしょう。どうですか？いや、きっと何かしらの形で心に燻ぶる物になるでしょう・・・。

どちらにしろ、私は今回の妖怪を描くのに少し面白い気持ちをもっています。いつもと違うサイズの色紙に描く、長い姿の高女です。この長い形のものは短冊と呼ばれるもので、昨年５体の百鬼夜行を描いた時にもこれを使いました。もちろん、この短冊は今回の妖怪を描くに適したものだと思います。

Taka-onna

高女の起源ははっきりとしておらず、それにまつわる話もいくつかありますが、それらの言い伝えの中でも共通している部分があります。彼女は普通の女として現れる事もあるけれども、妖怪の姿で現れる時は数メートルの高さにまで伸びているというのです。彼女の好きな事は2階まで伸びあがり部屋を覗き見て部屋の中の人々を怖がらせる事です。彼女はいつでも人の不幸を喜び、質素で薄汚い姿をしているといいます。

鳥山石燕による遊郭で2階の部屋をのぞき見ている高女の絵画はよく知られているでしょう。きっと遊女の妖怪は江戸時代に人気だったのでしょう。しかし残念な事に、その絵と名前以外の事を石燕は私たちに残してくれてはいません。

他の言い伝えでは必ずしも遊郭が登場するわけではありませんが、基本的に体がゴムのように伸びて二階を覗き見るという特徴に変りはないようです。

ある話を一つ紹介しましょう。裕福な農家が、5歳になる息子がいなくなったと気づいて家僕に探してくるよう命じました。しかし日がたつにつれ彼の家僕も一人ずついなくなってしまったのです・・・そして、ついに彼は気づきました。彼の妻が失踪の背後にいるのだと。なんと妻は家僕達を食べていたのです！ある夜彼がこっそりと妻の背後から見張っていると、彼女の胴体はみるみるうちに伸びあがっていったのではないですか。彼は驚いてすぐさま屋敷から逃げ、二度とその女の姿を見ることはなかったのだという・・・。

その他の言い伝えでは、高女はただ覗き見るだけであって人を傷つける事もなくただ気味悪がらせるだけであるとあります。

殺人鬼であろうとなかろうと、2階にいる人々を怖がらせる事には違いないでしょう。醜い女が“どれくらいの長さで”あなたの事をみているだろうか！

Have you ever had one of those dreams where everyone you know — your friends, your family, your coworkers — and even strangers are mocking you, laughing and laughing, and all you can feel is shame? Or maybe you are afraid of scary clowns, messing with your minds as their cackles and giggles echo in your mind? Well then today’s yokai is for you.

Kerakera-onna

Imagine you are walking down a street, late at night. Perhaps going home after a long day of work, tired, anxious to get out of the cold air and into your warm home for some dinner. You turn down an alley, the fastest way home even if a little creepy. Suddenly, you think you see something out of the corner of your eye. You turn… but nothing is there. Then you turn back, laughing at your silliness, when suddenly your laughter is echoed back at you. A giggle at first, then quickly growing into a high pitched, resonating cackle that fills the whole sky and your whole head, ringing in your ears. You panic, looking all around you, until you see the source: looming huge in the air ahead of you is the giant ghost of a middle-aged woman, thick and heavy makeup slathered on her face, pointing and laughing right at you.

You turn and run, panicked, but she is too big to get away from. Everywhere you go, she is there, laughing and laughing at you. You run into an open area with lots of people, and they don’t see her or hear her at all! But you do! She is always right there, behind you, cackling like a witch onto the back of your neck!

First introduced by yokai painter Toriyama Sekien, this yokai was one of the most popular ones on the Edo period. She is not deadly, or even physically dangerous, but she has a deeper, psychological effect that may end up doing more damage than your regular slash-em-up yokai. Her name comes from the sound of cackling, “kerakera,” in Japanese. She is the ghost of a prostitute — according to Sekien, one who has been *ahem* well-employed by many men. She appears as a middle aged, very large woman, wearing garish makeup. And even though all she does is laugh at you, it is supposedly enough to make the weak-hearted faint where they stand.

Kerakera-onna

Remember, you can buy high-quality fine art prints of this series from osarusan.etsy.com, or by sending me an email using the contact form on this site! | あなたはこれまでに夢の中で知り合い（同僚、家族、友達）から、または見知らぬ人から笑われ続けて恥かしがっている夢を見た事はありませんか？怖いピエロにおびえた事はありませんか？ケタケタという笑い声が脳裏から離れず苦しんだ事は？
今回の妖怪はそんなあなたにぴったりの女ですよ。

Kerakera-onna

夜道を一人歩いている事を想像してみて下さい。きっと長い仕事の後疲れていたら、寒い外から一刻も早く温かい家に帰って夕飯をとりたいと思うでしょう。そして例えすこし気味悪かろうと小道に入って近道をしようとる。するとそこに突然、視界の隅に何かが見え、振り返る・・・。しかしそこには何もない。気にし過ぎかなと笑いながら元に向きなおすと、不思議な事にあなたの笑い声がこだまとなって帰ってくる。始めはくすくすと笑う声であるが徐々に声は大きくなり甲高い笑い声が空全体に響き渡り耳と頭に鳴り響くのです。あなたはパニックになり辺りを見回し、ついにその正体を見つけます。そこには大きな中年の女が不気味に浮かび上がっておりあなたに向かって笑っているのです。

すぐさま道を引き返し逃げようとしてもその女はあまりに巨大すぎてとても逃げきれません。どこに行こうともその女はずっとあなたに向かって笑い続け、たとえ多くの人がいる大通りに出たとしても、あなた以外は誰ひとりその女の声が聞こえるものはおらず、見えもしないのだというのです！女はずっとあなたの首の後ろで魔女のように笑い続けているのです・・・。

鳥山石燕によって紹介されているこの妖怪は、江戸時代にとても有名な妖怪の一つでした。彼女は死に至るような攻撃をするわけでもなく特別に危険な妖怪でもありませんが、他の肉体的なダメージを与える妖怪よりも深い精神的な打撃を会えるのです。

倩兮女は淫婦の霊である。鳥山石燕によると、多くの男を弄んできた女が巨大な中年の女の姿が派手な化粧をして現れたものであるといわれています。

Kerakera-onna

Today was the first actually chilly day this fall. I was beginning to get worried because we had such a long, hot summer — I was afraid our fall would be late and warm as well. I finally noticed a little bit of color on the trees today, though, and I had to wear a light jacket today. It was wonderful, and it really made me feel like this is fall; and it really made me feel like Halloween is coming soon! And this perfect fall weather couldn’t have come at a better time, because we are now most definitely in the 3rd and final section of 2010’s A-Yokai-A-Day project: scary women! From now on until the end of the month I will bring you a different scary/evil/ghostly woman straight out of Japan’s most chilling ghost tales. Let’s take a look at today’s:

Kage-onna

With a name like kage-onna, or “shadow woman,” this yokai is pretty self descriptive. There are a number of ancient tales of this yokai/ghost appearing in homes, but they generally follow the same theme: the shadow of a young woman appears mysteriously on the opposite side of the shoji, or rice-paper door, but when you check the other side, there is nobody there. She may be accompanied by noises as well. The stories of people haunted by kage-onna generally don’t have people running screaming out of the house… they’re eerie and creepy, but more-or-less benign. Perhaps the creepiest thing, though, is that while usually this monster takes the form of a younger, attractive woman… other days, for no apparent reason, the shadow will be that of a withered old crone with a bell hanging from her neck.

On first thought, that doesn’t seem so scary to most people… but think about it, and visualize it. It’s pretty terrifying. I know — I sleep right next to our window, and I see shadows playing on the curtains all the time… and I have to go to bed right after writing this…

One other foreboding thing about kage-onna is that she often haunts houses that are already full of other yokai or mononoke. So if you happen to see one of these at your window, perhaps you should be expecting other company very very soon!

Kage-onna

Check my Etsy store for the most recent yokai fine art prints! And check back again later this week for when I list the final batch of yokai prints for sale! | 今日はこの秋一番の寒い日です。今年は本当に暑い日が長く続いたので、秋が来るのかと心配になったくらいでしたが、やっと少し木々の葉が色づき始めているのを見る事が出来ました。秋が感じられるようになってきたので、それと同じくハロウィーンが近づいていると実感してきます！秋を感じられるようになってきましたので、丁度いいタイミングです。これから第３セクションが始まり、最終セクションに向かいます！

Kage-onna　（影女）

古くからの言い伝えには家に出る妖怪や幽霊の話が多くあります。そのような話によく出てくるのは、若い女性の影が障子に映るが外を見ても誰もいないというものです。また、その女が現れる時には床の軋む音なども聞こえるのというのです。
影女はとても気味が悪く怖いものですが人を傷つけることはありません。しかし人を大変怖がらせるものです・・・。恐らく最も不気味な妖怪のうちの一つなのですが、多くは若くて美しい女性なのだそうです。ところが他の事例では、この影は首に鈴をつけた老婆の姿であるともいわれているそうです。
さっと見た限りではそれほど怖くは思わないのですが、ちょっと考えてみると・もしくはこれを思い描いて見ると・・・これほど怖いものはないですね。私のベッドの横には窓があり、カーテンには影が映っています。これを書き終わったらベッドに行かなくてはなりません・・・。

もう一つ、影女に関するお話があります。それによると、影女が憑いた家にはもうすでに他の妖怪や物の怪がいるという意味を持つというのです。もし、窓辺に影女をみたとしたらば、あなたは予見しなくてはならない。すぐに他の仲間も現れると！

Kage-onna

Today’s yokai is actually two yokai that share the same story. Like Gagoze a few days ago, we are looking at a unique legendary yokai rather than a particular type of monster. Today’s yokai comes from Nikko, a city famous for its ancient temples and shrines, in Tochigi prefecture.

Sessho-seki

Do you remember the adorable kitsune from last year’s yokai project? Well, like the other henge yokai, kitsune, or foxes, are not always cute and cuddly, and not always good. In fact, some time they are downright evil. Today’s legend is about one of those evil foxes.

During the reign of Emperor Konoe (1142-1155), there was a very famous courtesan named Tamamo-no-Mae. She was said to be the most beautiful and most intelligent woman in all of Japan. Her body always smelled beautiful, her clothes never ever wrinkled, and she appeared only 20 years old. There was no question she couldn’t answer, either, whether it be about music, astronomy, or religion. Everybody in the court deeply admired here, and Emperor Konoe even fell in love with her.

The emperor gave all his attention to Tamamo-no-Mae, and after some time he fell very ill. All of the priests and fortune tellers could not tell what was wrong with the emperor, and his prognosis looked very bad. Finally, an astrologer named Abe no Yasuchika informed the emperor that his darling Tamamo-no-Mae was actually an evil 9-tailed fox in disguise! She had taken the form of a beautiful woman in order to trick the emperor into loving her, and her plan was to kill him and seize the throne. Her plot uncovered, Tamamo-no-Mae fled the court.

The emperor sent Kazusa-no-suke and Miura-no-suke, the most powerful warriors in all of Japan, to hunt down the fox and bring her to justice. The chased and chased her but could never catch her. Finally, in a dream, the beautiful Tamamo-no-Mae appeared to Miura-no-suke in a dream. She had prophesied her own death the next day, and she begged him to spare her life. He refused.

Sure enough, the next day Miura-no-suke found the fox and shot her with an arrow. She died where she fell, and her body transformed into a large boulder, which became known as Sessho-seki, “the killing stone,” for anyone or anything which touched the stone would drop dead instantly. The fox’s spirit left her body and became a ghost, who haunted the stone.

She haunted the stone for a long time, until one day a traveling priest name Genno took a rest by the stone and was threatened by the ghost. A good priest, he performed a ritual and asked the ghost to seek salvation, and eventually he convinced her to leave the stone. Since then, Tamamo no Mae’s ghost no longer haunts the stone… but who knows where she could be? Perhaps she finally found peace and salvation, or perhaps she has moved on, haunting other places. The stone still remains where it always was, in the Nasu, Nikko, Tochigi. If you ever visit Nikko, be sure to visit the stone… but touch it at your own risk!

Sessho-seki

Don’t forget! Signed, matted, fine art prints from A-Yokai-A-Day are available from my Etsy store! Get yours while they last!

It’s hard to believe how fast this month is going by! I guess it’s true that keeping busy is the best way to lose track of time (is that a saying?). We’re nearing the 2/3 point of the month, and that means that the 2nd section of A-Yokai-A-Day will be coming to an end soon. First we looked at animalian yokai, then we moved into more monstrous and ghostly yokai, and in the next few days we will be gradually transitioning into phase three: scary women! To kick it off, today’s yokai straddles that border; she is both scary woman and horrible monster.

Nure-onna

Literally “wet woman,” nure-onna is something you should hope never to run into. Normally she is a solitary yokai, but occasionally it is said she works together with one of the crab-like ushi-oni. She’s a clever shapeshifter and disguises herself as a beautiful woman in need to help — usually carrying a baby, waiting by a lake or a river or the sea, and sometimes baby-less and combing her hair by herself. When an unsuspecting human comes by and offers to help her, or disturbs her, she begins her attack! If she is carrying a baby, she will ask her would-be savior to carry it for her. Then, the baby will grow heavier and heavier until the human is unable to move under its weight. Examining the bundle will reveal it to be only a pile of rocks wrapped in clothes, but by the time her victim realizes this, it is too late. She will have revealed her true form: a huge, snake-like body up to 300 meters long, and a long serpentine tongue! The final blow comes from her tongue, which she uses to drain all the blood from her victim.

So let that be a warning to you: never to offer kindness to a lone Japanese woman in distress!

Nure-onna

One more announcement: my Etsy store has been fully updated with a 2nd batch of yokai from this month’s creations. The prints are quite beautiful and make great Halloween presents at a very good price! Don’t forget to check them out! | 今月ももう２/３のところまできました！時のたつのは早いものですね。２/３という事は、この妖怪シリーズの第二セクションに入るという事です。最初のほうは動物に関係した妖怪を描いてきました。しかしここからはもっと怖く、ゴーストのような妖怪を描いていきます。そして残り3枚の所にきた所で、大変怖い有名な女の幽霊を描きたいと思っていますよ。

「今日の妖怪シリーズ」今日は濡れ女です。通常は濡れ女は単独で見られる妖怪ですが、牛鬼とともに出没するという伝説がよく聞かれます。彼女はとても上手く姿を変えることができ、助けてあげたいなと相手に思わせるくらいの美人になります（湖か川岸または海で子供を抱いているか自分の髪を抱いて現れます）何の気なしにやってきた人間が彼女に助けを申し出ると、濡れ女の攻撃が開始となります！

もし濡れ女が子供を抱いているならば、その子をしばらく抱いてくれるよう頼みます。それを受け入れてその子を抱くや否やその子供は段々と重くなり、抱いた人間は動けなくなります。奇異に思ってその子を見てみるとそれは大きな岩になっていますが、確認したときには時すでに遅し・・・濡れ女はその正体を現してしまっています。300メートルもある長い蛇のような体に長い蛇の舌をもっており、その舌を使って犠牲者の血を飲み干してしまうのです！

さて、皆さんも日本人女性が水際で困っている様子を見つけても、助ける前にちょっと考えてみてはいかがでしょうか？女は人間でしょうか・・・？

濡れ女

Not all the yokai we will look at are common “species” of supernatural creature. Some of them are unique monsters, like the bogeyman or Bloody Mary. Today we’ll look at a unique yokai born from a specific legend at a specific temple.

Gagoze

Gagoze is a horrible-looking ghost who haunts the ancient temple Gango-ji in Nara prefecture. His story dates back to the Asuka period (550-710 CE). He is first depicted in illustration in Toriyama Sekien’s Gazu Hyakki Yakko, and he is said to take the appearance of a demon in monk’s garb.

His story says that during the time of Emperor Bidatsu, in old Owari province (now Nagoya in Aichi prefecture), lightning struck the ground near an farmer’s house. From the lightning emerged a thunder god in the form of a young boy, and the farmer ran outside with a stick to kill the boy. The boy pleaded with the farmer to spare his life, and promised that he would return the deed by giving the farmer and his family a young boy as strong as the thunder god. The farmer agreed, and allowed the thunder god to return to the sky.

Sure enough, the farmer’s wife soon bore a child, and the child was as strong as a thunder god! However, the child was born with a snake wrapped around his head, with the head and tail going down the back like a ponytail. When the boy turned 10, he had grown so strong and proud that he challenged a member of the imperial family to a contest of strength and won.

After this, the boy was apprenticed to Gango-ji temple. Shortly after that, the belltower boys began dying very strange deaths one-by-one, and rumors began to spread that an oni, or demon, was behind the deaths. The boy wanted to solve the mystery, so he said he would catch the oni. He waited all night by the belltower, and towards dawn finally the oni came. The boy grabbed the oni by the hair and dragged him around so hard that he ripped his entire scalp off, and the oni was able to escape. The boy followed the blood trail left by the oni all the way to its end, where he found the grave of a (former) very lazy and bad temple servant. The lazy servant’s ghost had become this terrible ghost-demon, and the boy had defeated it! The boy became famous and grew up to be a priest at the temple, and the oni’s scalp became one of the holy treasures of Gango-ji.

The story doesn’t really tell too much about the yokai itself, but it does at least explain who Gagoze was: a lazy priest-servant-turned-demon-ghost who liked to kill children! How is this not already a Japanese horror story?? I really love how the depiction of the spirit in the 3 different ukiyo-e paintings I was able to find all show him in this creepy, crawling position. These artists were centuries before modern horror stories, but they knew scary, and we can still see ghosts just like Gagoze crawling around in J-horror movies like Ringu and Ju-On today.

Gagoze

「今日の妖怪シリーズ」今日の妖怪は元興寺です。元興寺は見かけがひどい幽霊で、奈良にある元興寺という古いお寺に住み着いていたものです。彼にまつわる話は大変古く、飛鳥時代にまでさかのぼります。彼が始めて描かれたのは鳥山石燕による「百鬼夜行」で、そこでは元興寺は僧の姿をした鬼の姿で描かれています。

元興寺の伝説にはこのようにあります。敏達天皇の時代に尾張の国の農家の所に突然の落雷がありました。農夫がそこに行くと、そこには雷神の子がいたので、農夫はそれを殺そうとしました。雷神の子は農夫に命乞いをし、もし命を助けてくれたら雷神のように力の強い子を授けると言いました。農夫はそれに応じ、雷神の子を空に返しました。

その後、農夫の妻は子供を授かりました。その子の頭には蛇が巻きつき、頭と尾を後頭部にポニーテイルのように垂らしているという異様な姿でしたが、その子供が10歳になったときに行われた力試しコンテストでは、なんと優勝してしまったというまさしく雷神のような力を持った子でありました。

後にその子供は元興寺の童子となりました。ある時、寺の童子達が変死する事件が続き、鬼に殺されたとの噂が立っていました。農夫の子はその謎を突き止めたくなり、自分がその鬼をつかまえる！と言いました。彼は毎晩鬼の来るのを待ち、待ち続けた末にようやく鬼がやってきました。そして鬼が現われるや否や、その髪の毛を引きずりまわしまし、夜明けごろには鬼の毛はすっかりと抜け落ちてしまいました。朝になってから抜け落ちた毛と血のあとを追っていくと、血痕はとある墓につながっていました。その墓は、以前元興寺で奉公していた無精な下男のもので、その下男が霊鬼となって現われていたのでした。この時に抜き取った頭髪は、現在元興寺の宝物になっているそうです。

今回のお話はそれほど妖怪の要素はありませんが、元興寺が何者かについて書いてみましょう：無精な下男が霊鬼となって現われたものであり、子供たちを殺していた。これは日本のホラーストーリーではありませんか？？

元興寺を描くために、3種類の異なった浮世絵を見ましたが、それらは全て興味深かったです。

元興寺（がごぜ）

A lot of people have asked me where I do my research on yokai for this project. I actually haven’t made any of these up — they existed for hundreds of years before I was even born. Most of my research is done on the internet, because the old yokai anthologies are all public domain now. However, there are also good references that can be found in libraries or on Amazon.com as well. The English Wikipedia has a lot of information on yokai — particularly in the form of scans of old yokai art books from hundreds of years ago located in the Wikimedia Commons. The Japanese Wikipedia has even more information, if you can navigate the Japanese. For those of you who want to learn more, here are a few good yokai chroniclers to reference:

• Shigeru Mizuki, author of the yokai manga GeGeGe no Kitaro
• Toriyama Sekien, ukiyo-e painter and author of The Illustrated Night Parade of A Hundred Demons (画図百鬼夜行, 1776), The Illustrated One Hundred Demons from the Present and the Past (今昔画図続百鬼, 1779), Supplement to The Hundred Demons from the Present and the Past (今昔百鬼拾遺, 1780), and The Illustrated Bag of One Hundred Random Demons (画図百鬼徒然袋, 1784)
• Tosa Mitsunobu, the 15th cenury painter of the original Hyakki Yakko Zu scroll
• Utagawa Yoshiiku, a 19th century painter
• Kawanabe Kyosai, one of my favorite yokai painters
• Sawaki Suushi, another one of my favorites, author of The Illustrated Volume of a Hundred Demons (百怪図巻, 1737)

Keukegen

Today’s yokai is a truly bizarre one, but even so it is a little bit cute… Its name is a pun with two different meanings — the first one being “fluffy-looking hairy thing” and the second being “unusual and rarely seen thing” — depending on the kanji used to write it. It kind of looks like a small dog covered in hair.

It lives in damp, dark places, and is actually a disease spirit. Despite its cuteness, if you find one of these in your house you are probably going to get very sick. Beyond that, there is very little documentation on this yokai. The earliest appearance of him is in Toriyama Sekien’s supplemental yokai anthologies, so I suspect it may be one that he invented just to fill in some pages. Not that that really cheapens it at all, of course.

If any yokai were to do well as a pet for humans, this would be it. In my opinion, it is just a like a small dog; tiny, hairy, and disease ridden. But then, I’m biased towards parrots myself.

Keukegen

Tomorrow I will update my Etsy store with additional yokai prints from the second week of October! | この「今日の妖怪シリーズ」のプロジェクトのために、私がいったいどうやってリサーチをしているのか？といったご質問を多くの方からいただきます。ご紹介している妖怪は私が創造したものではなく、全て100年以上前にあったものです。そのためほとんどの資料は大変古く、博物館などにあるためほとんどの情報はインターネットからとっています。しかしながら、図書館やAmazon.comで参考になる良い資料がみつかることもあります。Wikimedia Commons（ウィキメディア　コモンズ）では、古い妖怪に関する画集を見ることができますし、日本のウィキペディアにはより多くの情報があります。妖怪についてもっと知りたい方のために、ここにいくつかご紹介します。

• Shigeru Mizuki: GeGeGe no Kitaro
• Toriyama Sekien: 画図百鬼夜行 (1776), 今昔画図続百鬼 (1779), 今昔百鬼拾遺 (1780), 画図百鬼徒然袋 (1784)
• Tosa Mitsunobu: Hyakki Yakko Zu
• Utagawa Yoshiiku
• Kawanabe Kyosai
• Sawaki Suushi: 百怪図巻 (1737)

それでは、今日の妖怪シリーズにまいりましょう。「今日の妖怪シリーズ」今日は毛羽毛現（けうけげん）です。毛羽毛現は本当に奇妙な妖怪ですが、ほんの少しかわいくもあります。毛羽毛現の漢字表記にはいくつかあり、「希有希見」や「希有希現」などで、いずれにしろ稀にしか見られないといった意味や羽のような毛といった意味があるようです。

毛羽毛現は湿っていて暗い場所に住み、病をもたらすものとされています。大変かわいらしい外見ですが、もしあなたがこの妖怪を家の中で見つけたならきっとひどい病気にかかってしまうでしょう。毛羽毛現に関しては、この言い伝えの他は情報が乏しいようです。
毛羽毛現を描いたものの中で最も古いものは鳥山石燕（とりやま　せきいん）の妖怪画集にありますので、以前にもお話しましたが、もしかしたらこの毛羽毛現も石燕が創造した妖怪であるのかもしれません。もっとも、私はそれが悪いことだとは思わずむしろ楽しくて良い事だと考えています。

もし妖怪がペットとして人間にとって良いものであるならば、きっとこの子犬のような（小さくて毛深くて病気をもたらす）妖怪はうってつけでしょう。

毛羽毛現

My Etsy store でれまでの妖怪と英語版ですでに出ている妖怪達のプリント絵を買うことができます。チェックしてみてくださいね！