A yokai illustrated in the mid-Edo period by Toriyama Sekien in Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki. It appears as an infant that licks oil from household lamps. The motif draws on a local belief from Ōtsu in Ōmi: an oil seller who stole oil offered to a Jizō statue died and became a wandering fire. Sekien adapted that ghost-fire tale, embodying an obsession with oil in the form of a red baby.
Folklore & Legends
Traditions from Ōtsu tell of a “jewel-like flame” seen flying at crossroads, said to be the restless fire of a man who nightly stole oil from a Jizō offering and died. Some sources equate it with the “Aburabō” fires reported around Mount Hiei. Later retellings say a will-o’-the-wisp enters a house, turns into a baby that licks lamp oil, then becomes fire again. Local oral accounts are poorly preserved; the main sources are Edo-period essays and Sekien’s image.
This version is grounded in Toriyama Sekien’s imagery and the Edo-period essays cited in his notes, interpreting the infant form as a minimal personification of a ghostly fire. Its core is the idea of an oil-thieving flame, with the baby figure best read as Sekien’s visual cue. Lamp oil was a daily necessity, and offerings of oil at temples and shrines were held in special regard. Stealing oil violated religious and ethical taboos and was told as a fire that wanders after death. Later handbooks retell it as a fireball entering a house, becoming a baby, and licking oil, but region-specific oral examples are scarce and no widespread template is certain. Accordingly, this version presents a three-step pattern—phantom fire appears (at crossroads or within shrine-temple precincts), the infant image manifests (gesturing as if licking oil before a lamp), then departs again as flame—while avoiding unverified details and foregrounding its symbolism as a warning against defiling offered oil.
Character Profile
This section is our own creative profile for storytelling. It is not historical fact or scholarship.
The diagram below is a diagnostic evaluation chart for Sekien Iconography Edition. The higher the value of each item, the stronger that characteristic is expressed.
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