Tonight’s story is another one featuring a tanuki, and like the one from last week, it has a bloody ending. This time, though, the yōkai is a lot more dangerous.

The ending of this story matches a pattern that is seen in several yokai stories from all around Japan. Aside from a wild animal disguising itself as an old woman, discovering the pile of bodies underneath the floorboards seems to have been a popular folklore trope. We see it in story patterns like senbiki ōkami, although that is with wolves and not tanuki.

Anyway, this story serves as a reminder that even the furry little critter yōkai are sometimes vicious man-eaters!

The Tanuki Who Transformed into an Old Woman at Nabari, Iga Province

In Iga Province, there is a mountain village to the southeast of a place called Nabari. In this village, every night, one by one people were disappearing. Nobody knew who or what was responsible. One person had their child taken, another person had their parents taken, and the crying and grieving was too painful to watch.

One day, a hunter from that village went into the mountains at dusk. A person came at them from out of the mountains, and when he looked to see who it was, it was a hundred-year-old woman, with disheveled white hair scattered in all directions, and shining eyes. Her appearance was inhuman, so the hunter immediately nocked a crescent-headed arrow and recklessly fired it with a loud twang. It looked like he hit, but the woman got away.

In the morning, the hunter went back to that spot and found a trail of clotted blood that went here and there among the mountains. He followed the trail of blood back to his village, to a small hut behind the village headman’s manor. The hunter was mystified. He asked the village headman, “Who lives in the small hut behind your house?”

“My mother lives there,” he replied. “She is retired. She hasn’t been feeling well since last night, and she won’t eat or let anyone near her.”

The hunter replied, “Well, I have a strange story about that…” And he told the headman everything that had happened.

The headman was also mystified. He went to the small hut, but his mother realized out what was going on, and in an instant she tore through the wall of the hut and ran off. They looked into the bedroom and found a pool of blood the size of a rug. When they looked under the floor, they found countless human bones, including the hands and feet of a child, which had been chewed up and discarded there.

After that they searched the mountains and found the corpse of an old tanuki whose chest had been pierced by an arrow. The headman’s mother had earlier been eaten by this tanuki, which then disguised itself as her and took her place.

Tonight’s story is another one dealing with attachment. And once again, snakes are used as a symbol for that attachment.

One term that might be unfamiliar to some readers is chigo. This term pops up a fair amount of yōkai stories, and while it literally just means a child, it refers to young boys who were apprenticed to temples but too young to shave their heads and officially become monks. Chigo served as pages and attendants to elder priests, who often dressed them up and had pederastic relationships with them. This adds a layer of complexity to the situation between the boy and the girl in the story. Was the reason he was disinterested in her that he simply did not like her that way? Was it because he was still too young to see this girl as a romantic partner? Were her affections towards him so strong that they made him uncomfortable? Or was he maybe being pressured by an elder lover at the temple to break things off with her? The ambiguity in the story means each reader will probably see it slightly differently.

Watanabe Shingorō’s Daughter and Her Affection for a Chigo in Wakamiya

There was a man named Watanabe Shingorō in Kamakura. He had a fourteen year old daughter. One day she went on a pilgrimage to Wakamiya, and when she first laid eyes upon the priest’s chigo, she fell so deeply in love that she became gravely ill from lovesickness.

The girl confided her feelings to her mother, and so her father, who had been worried about her illness, sought out a good intermediary and contacted the chigo’s parents. The chigo’s parents gave their permission for the girl to begin seeing the boy.

However, as the chigo was still very young, he did not have very deep feelings towards the girl, and the idea of marrying her disinterested him. The girl’s spirit grew ever weaker, and finally she died. Her grieving parents had her cremated, and placed her bones in a box in a certain room with the intention of interring them in Zenkōji in Shinano.

Later, the chigo also became ill, and although various remedies were tried, they had no effect. Afterwards, he did not like to be near other people. His mother and father were perplexed, and so they spied on him through a crack in the door to discover him sitting across from a giant serpent and speaking with it. His parents were so grieved and saddened by this that they asked priests and yamabushi to pray for his protection, but these had no effect either, and finally he died.

When they buried the chigo in the mountains west of Wakamiya, a giant serpent was found in the coffin entwined around the chigo’s corpse, and they had to bury it together with the chigo. Later, when the daughter’s remains were taken to Zenkōji to be interred, the mother discovered that all of the bones had either turned into or were currently transforming into tiny snakes.

How terrifying a thing it is that the daughter’s attachment possessed and finally killed the chigo.

I’m resting my broken arm today to make sure I don’t over-stress it, so my wife has kindly taken over for the illustration again.

Tonight’s story features a daija—aka a giant snake or dragon. This daija is called the “lord of the swamp.” The Japanese word used here is nushi, which translates as lord or master of a particular location. A head of a household is a nushi, a ruler of a land is a nushi, and a supernatural monster that claims dominion over a particular area is the nushi of that place, and is often treated like a deity. Snakes and dragons in particular, but also giant yōkai fish or animals, often show up in folklore as the nushi of small local geographical features.

When the wife offers her stepdaughter as a bride to the lord of the swamp, what she really means is that she is offering her up as a human sacrifice. The daija will be free to do whatever it wants with the girl—eat her, tear her to shreds, turn her into a dragon and make her rule by her side… All of these have precedence in folklore. So while it sounds bad enough to be married off to a giant snake, it’s actually far worse, and the father’s reaction at the end is far more understandable than if it were just an awkward supernatural marriage.

How Hating a Stepdaughter Backfired in Shimōsa Province

In Shimōsa Province there was a man named Matsumoto Genpachi. He had a daughter who was twelve or thirteen years old. After her mother passed away, Genpachi remarried, but his new wife hated her stepdaughter. One day the stepmother brought her stepdaughter to a nearby swamp and said, “I offer this girl to the lord of the swamp. Come and be her husband!”

She did this five or six more times. Once, when they went back to the swamp, the sky suddenly became cloudy, a terrible wind blew, and heavy rain fell incessantly. They were frightened and went back home.

When the daughter told her father everything that her stepmother had done, Genpachi was furious. He was about to kill the girl’s stepmother when a daija around 500 meters long came. It raised its head and flicked its red tongue, and then turned towards the girl.

Genpachi said, “Hey, serpent, this girl is my true daughter. Even if her stepmother consented to it, you cannot take my daughter without my permission. In her place, I offer you her stepmother.”

The daija turned towards the stepmother and flicked its tongue. Meanwhile, Genpachi took his daughter and fled.

The daija coiled its body around the stepmother seven or eight times, then summoned a rainstorm. As lightning flashed around them, it took her down to the swamp. The stepmother hated her stepdaughter, but in return, retribution came to her.

Tonight’s story is based on events that took place in 1611 in one of the most haunted locations in Japan: Himeji Castle. But first, two vocabulary words that appear in the story:

kijin: We’ve seen oni already during A-Yokai-A-Day. Kijin is written with the character for oni plus the character for a god. So kijin can be translated into something like “demon god.” The word can be used for any spirit that is extremely powerful and fearsome. Some kijin are good, acting like defenders of the faith and use their wrath and ferocity to protect the weak. Others are thoroughly wicked. And some are just excessively proud, and punish those who insult them.

gongen: This refers to any god in Shinto-Buddhist syncretism. When Buddhism was spreading throughout in Japan, Shinto kami were interpreted as incarnations of various buddhas and figures from Buddhist cosmology. Due to this, virtually every Japanese god has an Indian counterpart. This can be confusing, but for the purposes of story a gongen is the same as a god.

Now, a little background on the story:

Ikeda Terumasa (referred to in the story as Ikeda Sanzaemon) was the first daimyō of Himeji Domain, and a rich and powerful ruler. After basing his clan in Himeji City, he set about renovating and expanding the castle, transforming it into the grand fortress and icon of Japan that it is today.

The castle’s renovations were completed in 1608, and almost immediately afterwards, strange things began happening there. They were blamed on the fact that, during the castle’s expansion, Lord Ikeda dismantled the shrine to a local god called Osakabe, which was located on the castle grounds, and had it re-enshrined on the outskirts of town in a large, communal shrine housing many gods. Osakabe’s wrath was said to be the source of these hauntings.

In 1611, Lord Ikeda fell gravely ill. This, too, was said to be the work of the vengeful Osakabe. In order to appease the god, Ikeda relented and re-enshrined Osakabe in the castle. You can still see her shrine today, on the top floor of the keep in Himeji Castle.

The yokai in tonight’s story is none other than Osakabe. (Incidentally, I’ve written about Osakabe before, in my book The Hour of Meeting Evil Spirits, which you can get from Amazon or on the yokai.com shop.) Though she is not named in the story, the figure appears in the guise of a strange woman in the main keep of Himeji Castle and refers to herself as “the famous gongen of this land.” That can be none other than the god of the land Himeji Castle is built upon: Osakabe.

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The Illness of Lord Ikeda Sanzaemon of Harima Province

When Lord Ikeda Sanzaemon, ruler of Harima Province, became ill and was in critical condition, a high priest was called from Mount Hiei to perform various prayers for seven days and seven nights. At midnight on the seventh night, a woman of about thirty years of age, wearing light makeup and a fine silk kimono, turned to the high priest and said, “Who do you perform such prayers? He cannot be helped. Stop this immediately.” Then she stepped up onto the altar and stood glaring at the high priest.

The high priest, by nature a noble monk, said, “Who are you that speaks to me in the form of a woman?” And he asked her several questions. Suddenly the woman revealed her true form: a six meter tall kijin. The high priest grabbed the sword that was beside him and tried to stab her.

“I am the famous gongen of this land!” said the kijin. Then she kicked the high priest to death and disappeared into thin air.

This story is told by the samurai of the Ikeda clan.

Tonight’s story is rather brief, but it’s rather funny. The idea of all the bravest samurai from the three provinces of Kaga, Etchū, and Noto (comprising all of today’s Ishikawa and Toyama Prefectures) were gathered together and yet all they could do was scream is worth a chuckle. But can you really blame them? Oni are terrifying, and a six meter tall one is definitely not something to trifle with.

Tonight’s oni is specifically described as an ao oni, or a blue oni. It’s not often that the color is explicitly stated, which makes this story a bit intriguing. Why blue? What is the meaning?

According to folklorist Yagi Tōru, oni come in five colors, which are specifically related to Chinese philosophy and the five hindrances of Buddhism. Blue oni are related to the element wood and the hindrance of antipathy. Red oni are related to the element fire and the hindrance of avarice. Yellow oni are related to the element earth and the hindrance of disquietude. Green oni are related to the element metal and the hindrance of sloth. Black oni are related to the element water and the hindrance of doubt. These hindrances are problems because they disrupt both meditation and daily life.

Since this was a blue oni, it must have been born out of feelings of hostility and bitterness. The man who died is not actually named in the story, but he is called the chūnagon of Kaga Province. That refers specifically to Maeda Toshinaga, the first lord of Kaga Domain and the second head of the powerful Maeda clan of Kaga. Toshinaga suffered from syphilis late in his life, and he withdrew from society. He died in 1614 either from syphilis, or from suicide by poisoning. The intense aversion he felt due to his terrible illness, which caused him to withdraw from society, is surely responsible for causing the ao oni to appear.

The Ao Oni of Kaga Province
Long ago, when the chūnagon of Kaga Province died, all of the samurai from the three provinces of Kaga, Etchū, and Noto were packed in a great hall. That day, at dusk, an ao oni about six meters tall came out of the back room and into the hall. Then it went to the front entrance, pointed at the front gate, and left. All of the samurai from the three provinces were brave men, but all they could do was scream. Only when the oni had left through the front door did they finally put their hands on their swords.

Tonight’s story features several famous figures from Japanese history: Fujiwara no Michinaga (966 – 1028), Kanshū (945－1008), Abe no Seimei (921 – 1005), and Tanba no Shigemasa (946－1011). Not much background on these figures is really necessary to understand the story, but it’s worth knowing that all three of them were established and well-regarded men of their time. Michinaga was a powerful statesman of the Fujiwara clan and the power behind the imperial throne. Kanshū was a Tendai monk  from Mt. Hiei who was appointed as a high priest under Michinaga’s reign. Abe no Seimei was an onmyōji of such fame that his name is practically synonymous with the art. Tanba no Shigemasa was a doctor, acupuncturist, and court physician to Emperor Ichijō. So this is a story about the real big names of the Heian period, and serves as a testament to how masterful their skills were—Seimei’s gift of foresight, Kanshū’s power of prayer, and Shigemasa’s surgical technique.

The Three-Way Magic Contest in the Presence of Michinaga

During the Chōtoku era (995-999 CE), high priest Kanshū of Mt. Hiei, Abe no Seimei, and the doctor Tanba no Shigemasa sat together before Minister Fujiwara no Michinaga. Some melons were served as refreshment.

Seeing them, Seimei prophesied, “One of these melons is poisonous.”

Upon hearing this, Michinaga said, “If that is the case, use your magic to tell which one of these melons has the poison.”

Kanshū faced the melons and gestured with his fingers and incanted. One of the melons moved, and that melon was immediately removed.

Shigemasa produced a needle from his pocket and stabbed the melon, and it stopped moving.

When Michinaga cut the melon open, inside was a snake. The needle had pierced the snake’s eye, and it was dead.

Michinaga was highly impressed by how well-versed all three men were in their skills.