T1 — Yokai and the Uncanny

Encounters with things that cannot be named: some are seen, some only heard, some never explained.

• Strange Fates
• Shape-Shifting Animals
• Yokai and the Uncanny
• Gods and Belief
• Death, Ghosts and Omens
• Taboos and Customs
• How Places Got Their Names
• Mountain Folk and Strangers
• Spirited Away, Other Worlds
• Origins of Plants and Animals

Tono25 tales

• Tale 9A voice calls from the bottom of the valley at OyachiKikuchi Yanosuke, a master of the flute, was crossing Sakaige Pass with his companions, and as he played his flute passing above Oyachi, someone…
• Tale 14The rites of Okunai-sama and Oshira-samaIn an old family, the Daido era, they enshrined a wooden image called Okunai-sama, a household god, carved from mulberry wood, and on the fifteenth…
• Tale 15Okunai-sama's miracle at rice plantingThe Abe family, short of hands for rice planting, was in trouble when an unknown boy appeared and helped, finishing the rice planting by dusk. The…
• Tale 17Sightings of the zashiki-warashiIt was said that old family houses were home to a god called the zashiki-warashi, a child spirit that lives in old houses, a child of about twelve or…
• Tale 18The decline of the house the zashiki-warashi leftIt was said that two child goddesses lived in the house of Yamaguchi Magozaemon, an old family, but one day a man met two unfamiliar girls by a…
• Tale 28The slaying of the monster monk of HayachineA hunter from Tsukumoushi village who was the first to cut a mountain path into Hayachine was roasting mochi in a makeshift hut when a large monk…
• Tale 29The tengu and gold of Mount KeitoTo Mount Keito, where a tengu, a long-nosed mountain spirit, was said to live and which even those on pilgrimage to Hayachine avoided, a man known as…
• Tale 33The mysterious light of Mount Shiromi and the phantom goldWhen one spent the night on Shiromi mountain, the area grew faintly bright around midnight, and from beyond the valley one might hear the sound of a…
• Tale 34The woman of the Hanaremori choja mansionThe mountains of Shiromi led on to the Chojayashiki in Hanaremori, an uninhabited place; a man who burned charcoal there saw, at night, a long-haired…
• Tale 35The woman who runs across ShiromiThe younger brother of Sasaki's grandfather, while gathering mushrooms and lodging for the night at Shiromi, saw a woman go as if running through the…
• Tale 55The girl who conceived a kappa's childMany kappa, a river creature, lived along the Sarugaishi River, and in a house in Matsuzaki village there was, across two generations, someone who…
• Tale 56The abandoned kappa child disappearsIn a certain house in Kamigo village too, a child that seemed to be a kappa, a river creature, was born. Because its whole body was red and its mouth…
• Tale 57The footprints of the kappaIt was not rare to see the footprints of a kappa on the sand of the riverbank, and they were especially many the day after rain. Like a monkey's…
• Tale 58The capture of the kappa who pulled a horseAt the house of Shinya, when they took a horse to cool it at a pool, a kappa, a river creature, tried to pull the horse in but was instead dragged…
• Tale 59A sighting of a red-faced kappaElsewhere, kappa, a river creature, were said to have blue faces, but the kappa of Tono were said to have red faces. When Sasaki's great-grandmother…
• Tale 61The stone that turned into a white deerA famous hunter encountered the white deer at Rokkoshi. The white deer was regarded as a god, and though he feared its curse, he fired at it, but the…
• Tale 62The red-robed apparition in the mountainsA hunter, meaning to spend the night in the mountains, encircled a great tree with a protective rope and slept. A large being in the form of a monk…
• Tale 75The woman who appeared at the match factoryAt the match factory shed that stood at the Chojayashiki in Hanaremori, a woman appeared in the doorway at night and laughed when she saw people, so…
• Tale 79The man with hands tucked in his robe who vanished at the entranceWhen the previous Chozo came home from a night of amusement, a man with his hands tucked into the front of his robe was standing at the gate.…
• Tale 82A shadow-figure standing in the sitting roomWhen Tajiri Marukichi was a boy, he went into the sitting room meaning to go to the privy, and at the boundary with the parlor there stood a human…
• Tale 100Cutting down a fox disguised as a wifeA fisherman of Funakoshi met a woman who looked like his wife on a night road, believed her to be a monster, and stabbed her to death with a kitchen…
• Tale 103The yuki-onna who appears on the Little New YearIt was said that on the Little New Year or on a winter night with a full moon, a yuki-onna, a woman of the snow, appeared leading many children, and…
• Tale 115Folktales and the tale of yamahahaThis was prefaced by saying that in Tono, folktales were called mukashi-mukashi, long-ago tales, and that among them, tales of yamahaha, an old woman…
• Tale 116A girl chased by a yamanbaA yamahaha, an old woman of the mountains who eats people, got into the house of a girl who was left to watch it, and while it was making her eat…
• Tale 117A chicken exposes a yamanba disguised as a daughterWhile the family was away, a yamahaha, an old woman of the mountains who eats people, ate the daughter and put on her skin to take her place. The…

Shiwa District18 tales

• No. 1UrikohimeAn old woman picked up a melon that had drifted down a river, and raised the girl born from inside it with great care as Urikohime. But while she was…
• No. 9The monster templeAt a monster temple where, generation after generation, the head priest was said to be eaten alive, a traveling monk stayed the night. In the middle…
• No. 13Nukafuku and KomefukuThe stepmother gave Nukanpuku, the child of the first wife, a straw bag with a broken bottom, while she gave Komenpuku, her own child, a sound bag…
• No. 19YamanbaA young temple boy of a mountain temple met a beautiful woman in the mountains and promised to meet her at night, but the priest saw through her true…
• No. 20The transformed tea kettleMonjiya no Kichi, who had lost at gambling, met a fox, a shape-shifting fox, near Hodoshima, and gave it red bean rice and herring in exchange for it…
• No. 22A pilgrimage to IseA child who gazed toward the south every morning wished to go on a pilgrimage to Ise, and was permitted by their parents to set out on the journey.…
• No. 23The child who went on pilgrimage to IseA child who had set out on a pilgrimage to Ise stayed the night in an empty house. At midnight a red candle and a red priest, and a black candle and…
• No. 25The peach-selling lordA young man hid the feathered robe of one of three tennyo, a celestial maiden, who were bathing, and made her his wife, but a portrait of herself…
• No. 27The cat who made a pilgrimage to IseA married couple kept a cat, borrowed from a family home, to watch the house while they were away. When they joked that the cat was useless, the cat…
• No. 31UbakawaA peasant's father promised to give one of his daughters in marriage to a snake, a serpent, often a spirit in disguise, that had saved a frog, and…
• No. 36Aguna ChinawaA tennyo, a celestial maiden, descended to a young man who loved learning and became his wife. The cloth she wove over three years caught a lord's…
• No. 39Onchiko-henchikoMonjiya no Kichi, who had lost at gambling, gambled with a Jizo, a stone bodhisattva statue, in a field and won, receiving a vermilion-lacquered…
• No. 42The snake that visited a daughterEvery night voices were heard from the daughter's sleeping room, and when her parents questioned her, she confessed that a man wearing a crested coat…
• No. 46The cowherd and the yamanbaWhen night fell on a cowherd in the mountains, he called out half in jest, with his leftover fish soup, "Come and eat this," and a yamanba, an old…
• No. 50The wife who ate nothingA single man was working in the mountains, and when he told his companions that he wanted a wife who ate nothing, such a woman appeared and became…
• No. 55The master of the marsh of OnumaA man was asked, on the shore of Onuma, by the woman of the marsh, the spirit that rules a marsh, to deliver a letter to the man of Goronuma. On the…
• No. 78Taro, child of the peachA childless old man and old woman picked up a peach that came floating down the river, and a boy was born from inside it; they named him Taro, child…
• No. 87The story sellerA son was given two hundred ryo by his parents and set out on a journey. From a story seller who sold each tale for a hundred ryo, he bought two…

Inaba and Hoki5 tales

• No. 1A giant bozu of the woods of TokuoIn Inaba Province, the woods of Tokuo, where Nomi no Sukune was enshrined, were dark even by day and had the reputation of being haunted by a…
• No. 3The tengu's treasureA child named Taro, who lived at the foot of Mount Daisen in Hoki Province and loved gambling, went one day to Mount Daisen to gather firewood. While…
• No. 4The tengu's treasureTaro, who was stopped in the mountains by a tengu, a long-nosed mountain spirit, received a cloak of hiding and a hat of hiding in exchange for an…
• No. 5The shaving courtesanIn Tatsumi Pass in Ketaka District, a fox, a shape-shifting fox, lived and enchanted people, shaving off their heads, and troubled the villagers. At…
• No. 11The tale of Lake TanegaA choja, a very rich man, of Miyashita village, Inaba Province hired a beautiful maidservant named Tane from Hosokawa village, who often brought back…