A yokai depicted by Toriyama Sekien in Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki: an old woman who blows out lights. She is said to snuff lanterns, andon lamps, and candle flames from a distance with a single puff, interpreted as an ominous, yin presence that abhors the cheerful, yang nature of fire. Oral accounts are scarce, and scholars often view the figure as largely Sekien’s invention. Later books and picture chapbooks show name variants (“Fukkeshi Baba,” “Fukikeshi Baba”) and link her to tales of lamps going out at parties or on night roads.
Folklore & Legends
Originating in Edo-period paintings, she is sometimes cited in various strange tales to explain events like “all the parlor lights went out at once” or “a lantern’s flame died on its own.” No solid evidence of older, place-specific legends or origin stories exists. Later essays and kaidan collections feature vignettes of an old woman slipping in to puff out the last lights after a feast, or blame distant, uncanny blowing for lanterns failing along night roads.
Yokai Cards1
Fire-Quenching Crone across multiple art-style decks
Anchored in Toriyama Sekien’s depiction of an old woman, this reading frames her as a being that bears Edo-period anxieties about fire use and the terrors of night. Fire was believed to purge impurity with a yang nature, yet accidental blazes became great calamities, so lamplight was strictly managed. The Fire-Dousing Crone personifies an “invisible hand” that presses upon daily vigilance. When a lamp at a banquet or in an inn’s parlor goes out, the event is narrated not as neglect or misfortune but as yokai intervention, symbolically restraining the vigor of flame. Sources vary on the name—“Fukkeshi,” “Fukikesh(i)”—all deriving from the act of blowing out a light. No tutelary deity or local origin tale is attached; references are mostly secondary, and in folklore taxonomy she sits as a variant of “lamp-light apparitions” or “parlor-room ghosts.”
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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