Yao-bikuni
yao bikuni
Yao-bikuni from Wakasa and Beyond
Ghosts and spiritsA legend of a long-lived nun centered on Wakasa and told across Japan
Yao-bikuni is recorded in a 1449 diary as a long-lived nun who came from Wakasa to Kyoto; in the early modern period, she became linked to a story of a girl who ate mermaid flesh. More than two hundred years old in *Yasuyoshi-ki*, eight hundred years old in *Gaun Nikkenroku*, and more than four hundred years old in *Honchō Jinja Kō*, the shifting numbers trace the legend’s long development.