Tonight’s story is about a katawaguruma, although the original illustration found in Shokoku hyakumonogatari more closely resembles a wanyūdō. It just goes to show that the names and definitions of yōkai are not set in stone, and vary from place to place and time to time.

The Katawaguruma of Higashinotōin, Kyōto

Long ago, there was a monster called a katawaguruma who, every night, would travel up and down Higashitōin Street in Kyōto. People were so afraid of it that they stayed inside after nightfall.

A certain person’s wife decided that she wanted to see this monster. One night, she peeked through her lattice window. Sure enough, just past midnight, she heard the sound of a single wagon wheel rolling through the streets. With no ox pulling it, and no people around, the wheel rolled towards her. Looking closer, she saw that hanging from the wheel was the severed leg and crotch of a human being.

The woman was shocked and afraid. Then the wheel spoke to her in a human voice: “Oi, woman over there! Instead of looking at me, you better go inside and look after your own kid!”

The woman was horrified. She ran inside and found her three-year-old child torn in half from shoulder to crotch, with the other half nowhere to be seen. She screamed and cried, but the child did not respond. The leg and crotch hanging from the wheel was that of her child.

This happened to her because she wanted so badly to see something monstrous.

Many of the tales in Shokoku hyakumonogatari have story elements that are found in other famous folk tales. This book was published in the 17th century, but it was certainly influenced by earlier stories from previous eras. And surely it also influenced later stories as well. So it’s hard to know in many cases which story came first, or which one influenced which. Suffice it to say that a lot of successful scary themes are repeated over the years in different stories.

Tonight’s story is a good example of that. You may be familiar with the tale of Hōichi the Earless, whether from Lafcadio Hearn’s book Kwaidan or the the movie based on it. It is certainly a creepy, impactful story. Well you’ll find some similar elements in this one, specifically the power that the Lotus Sutra has in rendering a living person invisible to ghosts. By writing the Lotus Sutra upon one’s naked body, the ghost will perceive you as a Buddhist prayer stick, or perhaps not even at all. You had just better hope that no body parts are left out!

The First Wife’s Revenge and The Miraculous Power of the Lotus Sutra

In the village of Chichibu in Musashi Province there lived a man named Ōyama Hannojō. One day while he was out in front of his house, a traveling monk on a pilgrimage passed by. The monk took one look at Hannojō and said, “You are possessed by a female mononoke. It will not be long before she takes your life.”

Hannojō was startled. “Please come inside,” he said to the monk and invited him into the house.

Hannojō offered his hospitality and explained, “I am embarrassed to talk about this. You see, a while back my first wife died in childbirth, and I only recently took a new wife. However, whether it’s a dream or reality I don’t know, but lately my former wife has been visiting my bedside night after night and waking me up. How can I put her spirit to rest?”

The monk listened to this, and replied, “I thought so… From the moment I saw you I could tell that such a mononoke was haunting you. I will banish it for you.”

The monk stripped Hannojō naked and wrote the Lotus Sutra all over his body. Then he stood him in front of his wife’s grave.

“No matter how terrible things may get, you must not breathe heavily,” warned the monk. Then he left.

The grave was up a mountain, far from the house. The night was a dark and lonely. A monkey cried on a distant peak and an owl called out from the pines.

Around 4 am, a rain shower passed overhead. Then, Hannojō’s first wife emerged from a crack her the gravestone. Her breath was ragged and painful. She sat down right on top of Hannojō. She was followed by a little girl of about two years old, who crawled around on the ground.

“Look! I found papa’s feet!” said the child.

The straw mat that Hannojō was wrapped in to keep warm had scrubbed away the portion of the scripture the monk had written on his feet.

The woman became excited, but when she looked closer, she said, “These are no feet! This is a prayer stick!” And she fled in fear.

Before long she reappeared, holding a lantern in her left hand. She picked up the child in her right, and then she headed in the direction of Hannojō’s house. By the time she drew close to the house, her lantern had gone out. Hannojō watched from afar, frozen in fear, wondering what horrible thing she would do to him if he were at his house.

After some time, she returned to the grave. In her hand she was carrying Hannojō’s new wife’s severed head. She sat down on top of Hannojō like she had done before. Then she turned to the little girl and said, “Well, I was planning on killing your father tonight, but he seems to have gone somewhere else. Oh well, this will have to do for now. I have achieved my goal of many years. When I was alive, this woman cursed me, and even in death the pain was unbearable. But now I am happy that I could kill her in this way.”

With those words, the mother and the child re-entered the grave, and the dim light of dawn could be seen in the sky.

Tonight’s tale uses us the generic term “bakemono” in the title again. However, within the story the original text uses the word kijin—鬼神 meaning oni goddess—to describe her appearance. I made the rare decision to translate kijin into English (as “demon”) rather than leave it in Japanese because in this case the text is talking about her appearance rather than her actual identity.

Kijin is a tricky word. It can refer to several types of supernatural creatures. Extremely powerful oni, like Ōtakemaru, are called kijin. They are like “gods among oni.” It can also refer to Buddhist deities with terrifying, demonic appearances. Although these kijin look monstrous, they are not evil creatures at all; they are “demonic-looking gods” who fight ignorance and fight fiercely for humankind’s salvation.

Tonight’s bakemono is neither of those. Since this particular bakemono haunts a grave, we can be sure that she is not a Buddhist goddess here to save mankind. She also does not seem to be a creature from hell here to hurt people. Since she appears in a burial mound, very likely she is the ghost of an ancient noblewoman. When she takes the form of a demon, this illustrates that she has been corrupted by jealousy or attachment and transformed into a terrifying monster rather than passing on peacefully to the next life.

The Bakemono of the Twin Mounds of Rendaino

In Rendaino in Kyōto, there are two ancient burial mounds separated by about 220 meters. Every night at one of the mounds, mysterious fires were seen every night. At the other mound, a terrible voice could be heard saying, “Come! Come!” Everyone who heard the voice was terrified, and after sundown nobody would go anywhere near the mounds.

One stormy night, a group of young men gathered together and said. “Is there anyone among us brave enough to go visit the bakemono at Rendaino this night?”

Among them was one man, strong of body and stout of heart.

“I will go,” he said, and he left.

The night dark and the rain was pouring. It was a dreadful night. Yet, he was a brave man, so he ventured to one of the mounds.

As usual, a voice called out:

“Come! Come!”

The man replied, “Who are you, calling out like this each night? Show me your true form and speak to me!”

A woman of about forty with a sickly pale face stood up out of the mound and said, “There’s no particular reason I call out like that. Now, please take me to that mound over there.”

The man was afraid, but he was prepared for something scary to happen, and so he calmy hoisted the woman up onto his back and took her over to the other burial mound. He put her on the ground and she entered the mound. Then the inside of the mound began to rumble.

A moment later, the woman took the form of a terrible demon, eyes shining, body covered in scales, and dreadful beyond compare.

Then she said to the man, “Take me back to the original mound.”

The man thought he must be insane, and that surely he would be killed, but he put her back on his back and carried her back to the other burial mound. The demon was pleased. She entered the mound, and a moment later returned in the form of a woman.

“Well well, nobody is as brave as you! I am so happy that my wish has finally been fulfilled!” she said, and she gave him a small bag filled with something heavy.

The man, feeling as if he had just narrowly escaped death, hurried back to his friends. He told everyone what happened and showed them the bag. Inside was one hundred gold coins!

After that, nothing strange ever happened again at the burial mounds.

Our story today deals with a yōkai who you are probably already familiar with: a kitsune. Although the word kitsune literally just means fox, I prefer to use the Japanese word untranslated when I’m talking about yōkai foxes to differentiate them from normal, non-magical animals. Kitsune are a tremendously famous and popular yōkai, and I just happen to have published a brand new book with a heavy focus on kitsune this year! It’s called The Fox’s Wedding, and it’s available now. So rather than write a lot about kitsune here, I’ll take the opportunity to do a quick plug and recommend you check out my new book!

The Kitsune Who Took Revenge on a Yamabushi

A yamabushi set out from Mount Ōmine for training when he came upon a fox taking an afternoon nap in the road. He crept up to the fox and blew his conch shell horn loudly right next to its ear. The fox was startled out of its wits and scrambled away.

Finding this amusing, the yamabushi continued on his way. Although it was still mid-day, the sky suddenly turned to dusk. Since he was in the middle of the wilderness, there was no lodging for him to take shelter. As he wondered what to do, he saw a graveyard nearby. Although he was afraid, he had no choice but to climb up into the ceiling of the crematorium to spend the night.

It was already as dark as midnight. From a distance several fires were visible, and they started coming closer. It was a funeral procession approaching the graveyard. There were two or three hundred people in the procession. The sight was beautiful. An elder recited a prayer for the dead, then rang a bell, a gong, and a bowl, conducting the ceremony with great solemnity. Finally, he set fire to the body, and then left.

As the fire burned and the body was reduced to ash, suddenly a trembling corpse climbed out of the fire. It stood up, then started walking. The yamabushi saw this and was overcome with fright. As he was wondering what to do, the corpse looked up towards the ceiling of the crematorium. It stared at the yamabushi. Then it climbed up towards him. As the yamabushi shrunk back even further, the corpse spoke.

“What are you doing here?”

And then the corpse pushed the yamabushi down from the ceiling. The yamabushi fainted.

When he finally came to his senses, the yamabushi opened his eyes. It was mid-afternoon, and he was lying alone in the middle of an open field. However, he had thrown out his lower back, and he was forced to walk home in great pain.

It was said that the fox, frightened by the conch, had gotten his revenge.

Today’s story is somewhat rare in that it is a morality tale. With a few exceptions (like Dōchin’s lesson about pride), most of the stories in Shokoku hyakumonogatari read like news reports, simply explaining what happened without commentary or justification for why something happens. Like Matsuura Iyo’s bakemono, or the henge that killed Itagaki Saburō, Japanese folktales often lack logical explanations.

During the Edo period, the shogunate strongly promoted Buddhism—a striking reversal from earlier policies. The temples became a very powerful institution. Many old folktales were re-imagined as morality plays with Buddhist messages that sometimes feel tacked on. Stories like today’s are entertaining on the one hand, but they also serve a secondary purpose of educating people about sin and virtue, and reminding them of their consequences.

How Kiya no Sukegorō’s Mother Ate a Dead Man in Her Dream

There was a man named Kiya no Sukegorō in the Kitano area of Kyōto. His mother was exceedingly greedy and had no interest in performing charity or good deeds. She was stingy and always gossiping about other people, envying their good fortunes and reveling in their misfortunes. She put no thought at all towards her next life.

One morning, she felt ill and stayed in bed longer than usual. Sukegorō went out early that morning to Ichijō Modoribashi on an errand. Underneath the bridge, Sukegorō witnessed an old woman tearing up dead people and eating them.

Looking closer, he saw that the old woman was the spitting image of his own mother. Sukegorō was shocked, and he hurried home. When he woke up his sleeping mother, she seemed greatly disturbed.

“I just had the most awful dream,” she said.

“What kind of dream?” asked Sukegorō.

“I saw myself underneath the bridge at Ichijō Modoribashi. I was tearing up dead people and eating them. It was miserable! But then, thankfully, you came here and woke me up,” she explained.

Sukegorō’s mother’s illness rapidly worsened, and she soon died. Truly she had descended directly from the living world into hell. Sukegorō was overcome with worry about her next life, and his grief was immeasurable. Not long after, Sukegorō entered the priesthood and became a monk.

This story is about another bakemono. The true form of this yōkai is never explained in the story, so whether it was an animal, or a ghost, or something else entirely remains a mystery. All we can be sure of is that it was powerful, and it really held a grudge against Matsuura Iyo.

The Bakemono Who Haunted Matsuura Iyo’s House

In Wakamatsu, Aizu Province, there lived a man named Matsuura Iyo. Many strange things happened in his house.

It all began one night, when the whole house started shaking as if there were an earthquake.

Then, the next night, a strange woman wandered onto the estate from out of nowhere and knocked on the back door, crying out in a loud voice, “Oh how sad!” When Iyo’s wife heard this, she scolded the stranger: “Who do you think you are, come here in the middle of the night and saying such things?”

The stranger stepped back a little after being scolded, but then she saw that the side door was open and rushed to enter the house. She looked like a pale woman wearing a white robe, her long hair untied and scattered. Her countenance was dreadful beyond words. The master’s wife, thinking this was no trivial matter, prayed to Amaterasu, and the woman vanished.

On the third day in the late afternoon, the strange woman was seen in the kitchen building a fire.

On the fourth day, a neighbor’s wife stepped out of her back door and saw the woman standing in her yard, staring over the fence towards the Matsuura house. She was so terrified that she ran back into the house and locked the door. A moment later the woman vanished.

On the fifth night, the woman entered the kitchen, took out a mallet, and went back out into the garden and started pounding the earth with it.

There was nothing the Matsuura household could do but pray. They made various offerings to the gods and buddhas. Then, miraculously, the following day the strange woman did not come.

But before they could say, “Finally she stopped coming!” a voice screamed out from the sky:

“Five times is not my limit!”

That night, while the couple were in bed, the woman appeared by Iyo’s bedside and blew out his candle. Iyo’s wife was so shocked that she fainted.

On the seventh night, the woman again came to the couple’s bedside while they slept. She grabbed their heads and knocked them together. Then she slipped her cold hands up their robes and stroked the couple’s legs. The couple were so terrified that they fainted. Then they both went insane and died.

Nobody ever understood why any of it happened.

Today’s tale showcases an exceedingly famous kind of yōkai: a tengu. They are one of the “big 3” yōkai of Japanese folklore, along with oni and kappa (and sometimes kitsune is thrown in for a nice round 4).

Tengu are great. They have such a rich and varied history, and they look awesome to boot—like a cross between hawks and monkeys, sometimes with a human face and a very long nose. The word tengu is written 天狗 and means “heaven dog.” It probably referred to shooting stars or comets, which run across the sky like a heavenly dog might. In many cultures, comets were seen as evil omens, and tengu were no exception. For much of Japanese history, tengu were considered THE baddies.

Tengu were evil souls who slipped out of the cycle of karmic reincarnation found in Buddhism and existed in their own little world. As such, they were the chief antagonists of Buddhist monks and nuns, and of good lay people attempting to walk the spiritual path. Tengu were said to do awful things. They would kidnap children and force feed then feces until they went insane, and then return them to their villages years later. They would tie people to treetops, then bend the branches down and fling them into the sky and over mountains like a catapult. And they especially loved to corrupt monks and nuns into debauchery.

By the Edo period, tengu’s image had changed a bit. They were often seen not just as wicked monsters, but as amusing, tricky rascals. What’s more, some tengu were even seen as honorable mentors. Tengu were extremely knowledgeable about all kinds of things. They were experts in magic, and in swordplay. The esoteric religion of Shugendō, which focuses on mountain worship and asceticism, viewed tengu as mountain gods who would bestow their knowledge upon the worthy. It was almost a complete reversal of their terrible image from earlier centuries.

One thing that has never changed is that tengu love to punish the wicked. Whether it is by tempting a hypocritical monk to commit terrible acts of debauchery, or by punishing a haughty lord to put him in his place, tengu are masters of knocking people off of their high horses. And that’s what today’s story is about. And when you’re finished, you can read more tengu stories at yokai.com.

How Dōchin’s Pride Was Wounded by a Tengu at Kuragari Peak in Kawachi

Deep in the mountain called Kuragari Peak in the provice of Kawachi, about 1.4 kilometers in, there is a remote temple. A man named Dōchin lived in alone this temple. Dōchin was fifty-one years old, and during his whole life he had never felt real fear. He often boasted to people how he wanted, even just once, to experience something truly terrifying.

One day, he went to the nearby village of Imakuchi for his afternoon meal. It was raining, and he was bored, so he stayed and chatted with the villagers until dusk before returning to his temple.

About eight or nine hundred meters into the mountains is a stone bridge. Earlier in the day there was nothing on this bridge, but on Dōchin’s way back there was a dead man lying across it. He thought this was strange, but being a man who had never known fear, he trod on the dead man’s belly and crossed the bridge. As he did so, the dead man bit the hem of Dōchin’s robe and held him fast. Dōchin figured that stepping on the corpse’s belly must have caused its jaw to clamp shut involuntarily. He stepped on its belly again, and its mouth opened back up, releasing him.

Dōchin considered that this person’s family must have been too poor to send his body to a temple for a proper burial, so they just abandoned him here on the bridge. He decided to bury the man. He hoisted the corpse up onto his back and carried it back to his retreat. And, since the corpse had tried to bite him earlier, Dōchin decided to tie it to a pine tree for the night and bury it in the morning.

That night, as Dōchin slept, from somewhere outside the gate a voice called out:

“Dōchin! Dōchin!”

Dōchin woke up and wondered what it was.

“Who has come to visit me in the mountains so late at night?” he called out.

“Why have you tied me up? Untie me immediately!” said the voice.

Dōchin was even more puzzled. He remained quiet.

“If you won’t untie me, then I will come to you!” cried the voice. It was followed by the sound of a rope being cut. Dōchin began to feel uneasy. He took out a large sword he had been practicing with, secured the lock on his door, and then shrank back.

Suddenly, the door opened. Dōchin, thought he was done for. He drew his sword and waited behind his closet door. The dead man searched here and there for him. Suddenly Dōchin jumped out and slashed at his side, severing its arm. The dead man vanished.

Dōchin picked up the arm and examined it. It was a monstrous arm, covered in hairs like needles. Dōchin locked the hand up in a trunk like a precious object. The rest of the night passed peacefully.

Now, Dōchin’s mother made a daily pilgrimage every morning to Dōchin’s temple, but that morning she came earlier than usual. Dōchin was still sleeping, but her visit woke up him. Dōchin rushed to get out of bed.

“You’re earlier than usual, mother,” he said.

“Last night I dreamed something terrible. Did anything happen to you?” she asked.

Dōchin told his mother what had happened the previous night, and she looked surprised.

“Show me the arm,” she said.

“I can’t,” he protested.

“Oh, please!” she insisted.

So Dōchin retrieved the arm and showed it to his mother. Then she reached out with one hand and snatched up the arm.

“This is my arm!” she said. And then she vanished.

The sky, which up until that moment had been clear, suddenly turned dark. A terrible laugh rang out in the air. It was so frightful that the brave Dōchin fainted, as if dead.

In a short while the actual dawn broke. As usual, Dōchin’s mother visited the temple. She was shocked to find Dōchin lying unconscious, and she ran back to the village for help. She returned with other villagers who gave Dōchin some medicine and looked after him until he revived.

“What happened here?” they asked.

Dōchin explained everything. From that day on, everyone said that Dōchin was the biggest coward in all of Japan.

This was all the work of a tengu, who punished Dōchin for being too proud.