Yokai Encyclopedia

A classic Edo urban apparition that finds sacred presence in familiar natural anomalies. The single-bladed reed form signals a communal storytelling device that shares unease without fixing a cause. The anomaly is sensed less as a property of the plant than as an atmosphere of place, told alongside night silence and the sound of water. Memorial rites, posted placards, and small shrines are often noted as local pacification practices, and like other Seven Wonders (such as the ginkgo that never sheds its leaves), the tale pointedly withholds rational explanation and leaves the strangeness intact. Later embellishments personify people and incidents, but older accounts remain origin-unknown and phenomenon-focused.

An amalgam of seven-in-a-row ghost tales found across Shikoku. Its core traits are threefold: seven figures advance in single file without a word, they appear at crossroads, on night roads, or at rainy dusk, and an encounter portends misfortune. Names, time of appearance, and garb vary by locale. In Sanuki they look human but are usually invisible, perceptible only through a ritual vantage—peering from beneath a cow’s hindquarters. A subtype limited to crossroads at the dead of night is called Shichi-nin Dōji, and certain once-busy junctions are remembered for their passage. The Shichi-nin Dōshi, who appear in rain wearing straw raincoats and hats, are linked to executed souls; a folk remedy to dispel the gloom after meeting them is to fan oneself with a winnowing basket. In Tokushima, seven child spirits accompanying the Headless Horse are said to have faded after Jizō statues were erected for their repose, reflecting a regional belief that memorial rites quell calamity. Though sometimes conflated with Shichi-nin Misaki, local names and functions differ; Shichi-nin Dōkō are identified by the outward feature of seven spirits marching in a line.

Told as an urban-legend-style ghost tale from Edo’s Honjo district, this curiosity lies in the pairing of objects and institutions rather than vivid supernatural feats. The phenomenon itself is scarcely described; the very adoption of a drum for duty is treated as uncanny. Shaped by the locale, samurai compound regulations, and a city prone to fires, the oddity of sound lingered in memory and became a tale. A variant recounts that striking a wooden clapper produced a drum’s sound, hinting at auditory error or transmission drift. Sources appear in local topographies and essays, and typically lack specific origins or named figures. Later creative retellings add ghosts of fire brigades or watchmen, but older lore is restrained, focusing on the strange pairing of residence and watchtower.

A late Edo period folk belief recounts that households employing a woman from Ikebukuro would suffer a barrage of noisy disturbances: sounds of thrown stones, damaged shutters, flying utensils and lanterns, and small fires flitting into the tatami room. Many versions begin with an affair between the master and a maid, and the phenomena cease once the maid is dismissed. Explanations vary, including obligations to the local tutelary deity, links to Osaki-possession tales from the Chichibu area, or simple human contrivance such as hoaxes and harassment. Rather than a single yokai individual, the term serves as a catch-all for disturbances tied to hiring women from certain locales, with parallel cases recorded for places like Ikejiri, Numabukuro, and Meguro.

The traditional image of the Senbiki-Ōkami portrays not a lone wolf but the terror of a pack moving under command. Tales begin on a nighttime pass where a survivor escapes up a tree. The pack gains height through leaps and coordinated boosts, and when they cannot reach, they summon a chieftain or outside entities such as an old cat, an ogress, or the Blacksmith’s Wife. Those summoned are linked to in-home impostors disguised as family, and by morning the world bears traces—bloodstains, missing household vessels, wounds, or memorial steles—that anchor the tale in reality. Though the wolves’ behavior is exaggerated, older interpretations align it with knowledge of nocturnal habits and pack movement, and prayers, edged tools, and daybreak commonly mark the turning point. Depending on region, the chieftain appears as a white-maned great wolf, an old cat, or an ogress, with names like the Blacksmith’s Wife, Koike Hag, or Yasaburō Hag, yet the core pattern of tree-bound escape and summoning remains. Folklorically, the story links calamity lurking at borders—mountain passes, the hour before dawn—to shapeshifters within the home, often accompanied by memorial towers and place-name lore.

Based on records from Horie Village in Awa Province, this version organizes the image of the Itobiki-Musume as a young woman operating a spinning wheel by the roadside. The moment someone looks her way, she transforms into an old crone and bursts into loud laughter. No harm beyond revealing her true form is reported, and she neither touches nor pursues people. Stories most often place her from dusk to midnight in spots where foot traffic thins—village outskirts, field paths, and crossroads. Folklorically she belongs to roadside怪異 tales, told as a warning not to be deceived by looks and not to dawdle off one’s route. The trigger for the change is acts like “staring” or “approaching,” and the silent switch to an old-woman figure is the core of the fright. The spinning wheel is an everyday tool, and her realistic working motions heighten the uncanny shock of a chance encounter. Parallels exist outside the region, but the named example from Awa is the best known.

This version organizes the Saramiyama monster tale preserved around Takagawa in Tosayama Village, Tosa Province. Aside from the aberrant traits of three eyes and eight faces, its appearance is left undescribed, with only the enormity of its remains emphasized. Cast as a mountain demon that attacks passersby, the tale centers on pacifying the mountain and slaying it with fire under the leadership of a local notable. A ritual wand (gohei) is said to have endured amid the blaze, leaving traces in toponyms and legendary sites known as the Pacifying Stone and Pacifying Place. While linked by association to regional stories of multi-headed serpents, it is not directly identified with them, and the true nature of the three-eyed, eight-faced being remains unknown. The story conveys taboos against crossing mountain boundaries and the folk theme of calming with fire and purification, though details such as dates, identities, and specific rites are unclear in tradition.

The Tofu-kozo is a character that embodies the sensibility of the late Edo period, which shifted *yokai* from 'objects of fear' to 'objects of affection and laughter'. While ancient Japanese and Chinese *yokai* were feared in dark tales and picture scrolls, the Tofu-kozo was born from the start as a character in printed entertainment books, intended not to frighten readers but to amuse them. The core of its form lies in the fixed iconography of 'hat, tofu, tray, and stuck-out tongue'. Rather than the invention of a single author, this became standardized as it was repeated and shared across printed books. Its very powerlessness—having no real abilities, causing no harm, and simply standing with tofu—ironically generated strong semiotic power. Visual traits such as the white of the tofu against the red of the maple stamp, and the disproportion between the child's body and the large hat, provided the foundation for its spin-off into toys and kite paintings. The Tofu-kozo is an entity that demonstrated early on that *yokai* could be detached from local beliefs and circulated as urban products and brands, and can be read as a distant archetype of modern mascots (*yuru-chara*) and the character business.

This form brings together traditions from Shima, Izu, and Echizen in which a diver sees another self in the water. Tomokadzuki duplicates the witness's face, clothing, and equipment. Only the end of its headcloth, hanging much too long behind it, gives the double away. It appears when cloud cover or fading light has dimmed the sea, approaches with an abalone or another shellfish, and then leads the diver toward the darker side of the water. Ama passed down several responses: do not let fear disrupt the sequence of movements, do not reach forward for what the apparition offers, and wear towels or garments bearing protective signs. None was considered infallible. Some stories tell of a netlike shroud falling over the diver. Encounters overwhelmingly occur during solitary work, which is why many communities regarded diving in company as the safest defense. Tomokadzuki can be understood as a revenant that draws people beneath the sea, but explanations based on delirium, fatigue, and hallucination after long periods of diving have also circulated for generations. Whatever its nature, Shima ama marked their clothing and headcloths with the pentagram and lattice known together as Seiman–Dōman. In Antō, the related umi-ama is also said to move contrary to expectation, never allowing the witness a clear view. The legend gives visible form to a diver's most dangerous moment: alone, disoriented, and no longer certain whether the figure in the water is a companion or herself.

Taking the form of a giant shark (eight-fathom wani) in the *Kojiki* and a dragon in the *Nihon Shoki*, she is the grandmother of the first emperor and the maternal origin of the seafaring Azumi clan. A sacred deep-sea shrine maiden symbolizing pearls, whose legends live on in Udo Jingu's Breast Rock and Watadzumi Shrine.

The core of Toyouke-Omikami lies in placing the simple fact of "the god who eats" at the center of religious rites. Amaterasu-Omikami is the imperial ancestral goddess, and the Naiku is the center of Ise Jingu, but the system of offering sacred meals to Amaterasu is supported by the Geku. When the official history of Ise Jingu calls Toyouke the Miketsu-kami of Amaterasu-Omikami, it does not merely mean she is a goddess in charge of food. The very act of purifying rice, water, salt, and fire, and offering them daily so that the sun goddess can continue to be welcomed as the sun goddess, is deified. The story of the Geku's establishment portrays Toyouke as a "god invited because she was needed." In the official explanations of the Jingu based on the *Toyouke-gu Gishikicho*, Amaterasu appears in Emperor Yuryaku's dream, stating that being alone in one place is painful and she cannot peacefully enjoy her sacred meals, thus requesting that the Toyouke-Omikami residing at Hiji-no-Manai be brought to her side. Here, Amaterasu does not appoint Toyouke from a superior position; rather, centered around the necessity of eating, she *needs* Toyouke. The heart of the myth is not domination, but a relationship of provision and dependence. This relationship is enacted daily through the *Higoto Asayu Omikesai*. Twice a day, morning and evening, at the Geku's Mikeden, rice, water, salt, and other items are offered to the deities of the Naiku, Geku, and auxiliary shrines. The items of the sacred meal are strictly prescribed, cooked using fire specially ignited in the Imibiyaden, and purified with sacred water drawn from the Kami-no-Mi'i Shrine. Toyouke's power does not manifest in an instant like thunder or a sword. It appears in the unbroken repetition of kindling fire, drawing water, cooking rice, offering it, reciting prayers, and doing it all over again the next morning. The details of the sacred meals teach us that Toyouke is not a vague symbol of "food in general." Not just rice, but water, salt, sake, fish, seaweed, vegetables, and fruit are designated, and chopsticks are provided. This is not simply placing products of nature as they are; it is a series of etiquettes in which humans offer them to the gods through fire, water, and vessels. Toyouke's divine virtue encompasses both the yielding of the harvest and the process of purifying it, bringing it before the gods, and establishing it as a prayer. In myth, Toyouke appears under multiple names: Toyouke-bime-no-Kami, Toyuuke-no-Kami, and Toyouke-Omikami. The Kokugakuin Deity Name Database identifies Toyouke-bime as the child of Wakumusubi, noting the possibility of reading her as the spirit of food or rice. On the other hand, regarding Toyuuke-no-Kami, while considered the deity of the Ise Geku, cautious debate remains about her position in the *Kojiki* text and whether she is the exact same deity. In other words, Toyouke is not a deity completely closed within a single classic text. She is a deity with the thickness of ritual history itself, formed by overlapping the food goddess of the *Kojiki*, the Manai traditions of Tanba/Tango, and the rites of the Ise Geku. The custom of *Geku-sensai* (worshipping at the Geku first) is also a key to understanding this divinity. In the Jingu's festivals, the Miketsu-kami is worshipped first at the Geku before proceeding to the Naiku. This does not mean the Geku is higher in status than the Naiku. Rather, it represents the order of preparing the act of offering food to the supreme deity before worshipping that supreme deity. Toyouke does not usurp the center. But she quietly and preemptively fulfills what is necessary for the center to continue being the center. This act of "preemptively fulfilling" is precisely what makes Toyouke stand out not as an auxiliary god, but as the god standing at the gateway of ritual. The sense that food must be prepared before welcoming the gods shows that prayer begins with the procedures of daily life. This figure is easy for modern readers to understand. Those who cook, those who support the dining table, those who grow crops, and those who begin their necessary work at the same time every morning often do not become the protagonists of the story. But the moment that repetition is lost, both daily life and religious rites grind to a halt. Toyouke-Omikami is not merely behind the scenes of myth. From the Geku, she quietly continues to show us that the preparation of food itself is the central act that drives the order of the gods.

A version organized from folklore materials of a child-shaped mountain spirit seen in the eastern Tanzawa mountains. Generally harmless, it simply follows quietly behind travelers, yet at times steps ahead at forks to guide them onto the right path. It wears rough straw matting or homespun, sometimes pelts, blending into the forest’s shadow and vanishing when one turns back. It is said to appear most often in the afternoon, and at night to carry a small light like a lantern. Those who meet it repeatedly often think of lost children and leave rice balls, yams, sweets, or dried persimmons on rocks or stumps as offerings. Some accounts say it fades away as one nears the villages, others that it withdraws when called to at night, and none describe it as vengeful. Rooted in overlapping ideas of mountains and the dead, it stands as a symbol of the boundary nature of the mountain realm.

It appears most often during rush hour, reading the carriage’s flow and shaping breezes from a whisper to a brisk draft. When crowds make the air stagnate, it slips in from the end of the car, threads through the middle, and carves a path that compensates for weak air conditioning. Odors are trapped in small vortices and vented outside the instant the doors open at the next station. It lingers beside acts of kindness, tying coolness at a passenger’s shoulder. For nuisances, it pricks the nape with a single cold point, and gently thins excessive sweat or perfume to preserve everyone’s dignity. At times it nudges ventilation buttons and AC settings as a playful “wind’s trick,” aiding the conductor’s judgment. On stormy days it avoids overblowing so hats and papers stay put. On the last train it evens the breath of sleepers and sands down harsh drunkenness to head off scuffles.

The Treasure Ship print traces back to boat images used to cast off bad dreams, circulated through urban and temple–shrine annual events. By the early modern period, designs commonly featured the Seven Lucky Gods and heaps of treasures, with auspicious characters on the sail to amplify good omens. Appending a palindrome verse tied it closely to first-dream traditions, preserving the logic of keeping a good dream and consigning a bad one to the river. While designs vary by region and publisher, the print uniquely combines two layers of meaning: inviting fortune and transferring or dispelling impurity. Folklorically, it links to New Year’s purification from year’s end through the first week, backed by its spread as an urban print commodity, ties to temple and shrine origin tales, and the vogue for Seven Lucky Gods as playful stand-ins.

A yokai image fixed in medieval narratives: as Minamoto no Raikō lies ill, a monk-like apparition appears at his pillow. When struck, it flees leaving white blood, and following the trail leads to a mound or cave where a giant spider lurks. In Noh it calls itself “the ancient spirit of Mount Katsuragi,” while picture scrolls show it beguiling people with manifold shapeshifts and illusions. Its grotesque form—countless heads and swarms of small spiders bursting from its belly—has been read as a symbol of all manner of demons. Early modern joruri and kabuki inherited this line, tying it to the martial exploits of Raikō’s Four Heavenly Kings. Although the ancient term tsuchigumo once referred to local powers, that lineage diverges from the storybook yokai; only the name was carried over.

The Tsuchinoko, as a mallet-bodied strange snake bounding along mountain paths, does not appear as a giant snake god, but as the very unease lurking in the grass at one's feet. When people see a snake, they normally expect it to be long and slender. However, in Tsuchinoko testimonies, that expectation is immediately shattered. The form—a body the size of a beer bottle, a short tail, a triangular head, and a body glowing gray or dark brown—betrays snake-likeness while still being a snake. Here, "yokai-likeness" is born. The anomaly of its appearance does not reside in flashy horns or flames, but in an awkward thickness that slightly overflows even when mountain dwellers try to explain it using everyday metaphors. The lore surrounding its movements also separates the Tsuchinoko from ordinary snakes. In the compilation by Higashishirakawa Village, characteristics like rolling, moving back and forth without slithering, standing vertically, and jumping are listed. While slithering is understood as the fundamental locomotion of a snake, the Tsuchinoko deviates from this: it moves straight like a stick, rolls like a cylinder, and springs like a coil. Because not only its shape resembles a mallet, but its movements take on a tool-like stiffness, the observer cannot instantly distinguish whether they "saw a living creature" or "something rolled by." This unidentifiable timeframe transforms the eyewitness account into a yokai tale. Stories of the Tsuchinoko's venom or swiftness serve to compress the dangers of the wilderness into a small body. While it is not massive enough to swallow a village like an Orochi, it is too eerie to approach and too fast to catch. The fact that both venomous and non-venomous theories are listed together is also important; the folklore does not converge into a single ecological encyclopedia, but wavers depending on the viewer's fear and sense of distance. The misidentification of real animals, expectations for unknown creatures, and wariness of dangers encountered in the mountains overlap under the same name. The Tsuchinoko culture of Higashishirakawa Village transformed the yokai from something to "see" into something to "search for." In the Tsuchinoko Festa, searching, treasure hunting, and hunting rallies are combined. This is not mere tourist commercialization. The yokai is not detached from the land and consumed; rather, through the village's topography, riverbanks, grass, and gatherings of people, the possibility that "it might be there" is re-enacted every year. The Tsuchinoko is not weak because it isn't caught. By not being caught, it invites all participants into an unfinished story. When viewed in the genealogy of snake-type yokai, the Tsuchinoko's position becomes even clearer. The Yamata-no-Orochi is a mythological calamity, and giant snakes easily become symbols of spiritual power dominating water or mountains. Tales of venomous snakes like the Shichiho-hebi (Seven-Step Snake) sharply indicate distance and taboos. In contrast, the Tsuchinoko does not sit at the center of mythology, but remains at the edges of testimony. It does not demand grand rituals, nor does it systematize curses; it simply multiplies through the short verbs of "saw," "fled," and "searched." Therefore, it meshes well with modern search culture. The very act of typing in a name, searching for images, and reading capture info has become an extension of the physical gesture of peering into the bushes on a mountain path. The inconsistency of its name also supports the Tsuchinoko's yokai nature. Names like Tsuchinoko, Tsuchi-hebi, Nozuchi-hebi, and Bachi-hebi do not fix the subject like a scientific name, but preserve the land where it was seen, the angle from which it was viewed, and the impression of the storyteller. Look at its thickness and it becomes a mallet; look at its movement and it becomes a snake; look at its ungraspable true nature and it becomes a cryptid. Precisely because the name wavers, the Tsuchinoko spread not as a single rare beast, but as a generic term for the inexplicable moments people encountered in the wilderness. Read in this form, the Tsuchinoko simultaneously possesses the romance of a cryptid and the narrative tenacity of a yokai. If one only asks whether it really exists, the answer quickly hits a dead end. However, when asking why people cannot forget that short, thick shadow, why villages turn it into a festival, and why they continue to place bounties on something that cannot be caught, the Tsuchinoko suddenly becomes a profound yokai. The small strange snake bounding down the mountain path sets human imagination in motion before providing evidence, making us go out once more to search for what we could not see.

This traditional image is based on the band of old tools described in the Kyoto University manuscript of the *Tsukumogami Emaki*, copied in the early modern period. The setting is the capital during the Kōhō era (964–968). During the year-end soot-sweeping, tools that had served households for a long time are thrown into the alleys inside and outside the capital. Cast out without reward into places where they would be trampled by oxen and horses, the implements resent the callousness of humans and begin consulting on how to become monsters (yōbutsu) and exact their revenge. Only one, Ichiren Nyūdō, a prayer bead rosary, objects. Accepting being discarded as karma, he advises them to "repay enmity with grace," but he is beaten so badly by the angry hand-staff Aratarō that his fasteners break, and he retreats with the help of his disciples. Then, Master Kobun brings up the logic of yin and yang. He explains that all things merely manifest temporary forms according to yin and yang; if they cast away their lives on Setsubun—when yin and yang switch places—and entrust themselves to the Creator God, even implements can obtain a different form. On the night of Setsubun, the old tools end their own lives as taught. They then all at once transform into yōbutsu that no longer fit their original purposes—men and women, the elderly and children, various goblins, and beasts. They make their home deep in Nagasaka, behind Mount Funaoka, a place close to the capital where food is easily obtained. They venture into the capital to snatch and devour people and livestock, and upon returning, they pour sake, dance, and compose waka and Chinese poetry. Those who were once "objects" used by humans now re-enact human culture, claiming it as their own. The picture scroll does not depict this transformation as magic that completely erases the original tools. Because faces sprout on the implements discarded by the roadside, and then human, demonic, or bestial bodies are granted to them, the viewer can trace back what became which yōbutsu. The people of the capital cannot see their forms and cannot pursue them by force of arms, so they have no choice but to pray to the gods and Buddhas. Meanwhile, the yōbutsu master Go, Sugoroku, Kemari (kickball), archery, and poetry; they are shaped not merely as a mob, but as a group that excessively mirrors the refinement and pleasures of human society. Before long, the band decides that failing to show respect to the Creator God who gave them their forms would make them no better than heartless trees and stones, so they build a shrine and name it "Henge Daimyōjin" (Apparition Great Deity). They install a head priest, shrine maidens, and ritual musicians, and even prepare a portable shrine. On the dead of night on the 5th day of the 4th month, they form a splendid procession and head east on Ichijō Avenue, only to encounter the retinue of the Chancellor (Kampaku), who is heading west for a provisional appointment ceremony. The attendants fall from their horses, but the Chancellor stares down the yōbutsu from within his carriage. Inside the amulet he wears is a Sonshō Dharani written by a certain high priest; flames erupt from it, scattering the procession. Receiving the report, the Emperor orders divination, offerings to shrines, and prayers at various temples. When the high priest who wrote the Sonshō Dharani performs the great Nyohō Sonshō ritual at the Seiryōden, on the sixth day, seven or eight protective child-deities (Gohō Dōji) wielding swords and jeweled staffs appear in the light. The child-deities fly north and assault the yōbutsu's castle. However, they do not massacre them; they declare that their lives will be spared if they cease harming people and revere the Buddhist law. The defeated old tools do not simply blame their predicament on humans, but recognize it as retribution for taking life, and awaken to the desire for enlightenment. The one they look up to as their master is Ichiren Shōnin, whom they had previously banished. They visit his hermitage deep in the mountains, and Aratarō, in particular, apologizes for the sin of striking him. Ichiren forgives them, saying that it was precisely because of that blow that he himself was able to awaken to the path, and he has them all take the tonsure. The old tools inquire about the depths of various sects, seeking the teaching that leads most swiftly to enlightenment. Ichiren preaches the Shingon esoteric doctrine of "becoming a Buddha in this very body" (Sokushin Jōbutsu), and imparts the path of mudras, mantras, and visualization. There is a play on words embedded here: because many of them were originally "vessels" (ki), they are also "great vessels" (taiki) capable of receiving the teachings. In this scene, the explanation that a divine spirit possesses the vessel from the outside and animates it is also rejected. It is precisely because the implements themselves changed their forms, became aware of their sins, listened to the teachings, and practiced asceticism that they can become the subjects of enlightenment. Citing the legend that Kōbō Daishi manifested the form of Dainichi Nyorai at the imperial court, Ichiren preaches that Shingon teachings are the most superior for swift enlightenment. While the story uses ghost stories of implements as an entry point, it ultimately compares the teachings of various sects, guiding the reader into a religious discourse where the path of Buddha-nature and practice is opened even to those deemed heartless. Ichiren achieves Buddhahood at the age of 108, and the remaining disciples enter separate deep mountains and dark valleys to sever their dependence on one another. Building hermitages among rocks or under pines, after intense practice, they each become different Buddhas. The conclusion of the story does not show raging old tools being tamed by humans to become guardian spirits. It is a drama of "Hijō Jōbutsu," demonstrating that even implements deemed to have no heart can achieve Buddhahood if they repent, receive teachings, and practice asceticism of their own accord. This traditional image does not add the character of a "gentle guardian deity who grants good fortune if cherished"—which is absent from the historical sources—but instead centers on the immense transformation from resentment, to imitation, defeat, religious awakening, and finally enlightenment.

Tsukuyomi's Position Among the Three Precious Children. While the basic description touches upon Tsukuyomi's primary myth, this detailed explanation delves into the deity's unique structural position within the "Three Precious Children" (Mihashira-no-uzu-no-miko). The tripartite rule by Amaterasu Omikami (Takamagahara, day, light), Tsukuyomi (Yoru-no-Oskuni, night, moon), and Susanoo-no-Mikoto (the sea, untamed force) established the three domains of day, night, and wild power in ancient Japanese cosmology. However, Tsukuyomi alone has almost no detailed mythological narratives throughout the *Kojiki* and *Nihon Shoki*, disappearing from the center of the story immediately after being entrusted with the "Yoru-no-Oskuni." The discrepancy between the high structural position as the middle child and the sparsity of mythological activity is a major point of discussion in the study of ancient Japanese mythology. The Slaying of Ukemochi — A Contrast with the Kojiki. Tsukuyomi's primary mythological tale, the slaying of the food deity Ukemochi, is recorded only in the *Nihon Shoki* and does not appear in the *Kojiki*. In the *Kojiki*, this identical narrative motif is performed by Susanoo-no-Mikoto against Ogetsuhime. This indicates that ancient Japanese mythology possessed a single narrative template for the "origin of grain = five cereals sprouting from a deity's corpse," which was assigned to different deities (Susanoo vs. Tsukuyomi) in the two texts. The difference in this allocation is a vital piece of evidence for examining the compilation process, variant transmissions, and cosmological consistency of ancient Japanese myths. The editorial intent of the *Nihon Shoki* in assigning the Ukemochi murder to Tsukuyomi is interpreted as an effort to emphasize the connection between the moon and the agricultural calendar. Comparative Religion of a "Quiet Deity". Tsukuyomi's "quiet, reclusive" personality is unique even when compared to lunar deities worldwide. From Selene and Artemis in Greece, to Luna in Rome, the Persian moon god Māh, the Chinese lunisolar calendar, and Korean lunar spirits, moon deities across the ancient world are often depicted as highly active and central figures. In contrast, Japan's Tsukuyomi is rare for having few myths and an emphasized serene, introverted, and mediatory nature. Scholars such as Shinobu Orikuchi and Eiichiro Ishida deciphered this characteristic, concluding that "the Japanese moon deity has a 'watchful' nature," and organized the ancient Japanese relationship with the moon not as one of "direct worship" but as a connection of "quiet watchfulness." Moon and Immortality Beliefs — Okinawa and East Asian Comparisons. Nikolai Nevsky, Shinobu Orikuchi, and Eiichiro Ishida positioned Tsukuyomi's primitive attributes within the broader East Asian beliefs linking the "moon and immortality". In Okinawa and the Ryukyu Islands, there is a tradition of "Sudemizu" (water of molting or rejuvenation), a water of immortality bestowed upon humanity from the moon, indicating a symbolic link between the moon's "molting" (the cycle from full moon to new moon) and immortality/rebirth. Similar "moon and immortality" beliefs are distributed across China, Korea, Mongolia, and Southeast Asia, framing the prototype of Tsukuyomi as a Japanese variation of this widespread belief system. The moon's periodicity, its association with feminine tides, the agricultural calendar, and the mystery of its waxing and waning all multi-layered the ancient faith. Gassan Shrine and Shugendo. Gassan Shrine in Yamagata Prefecture, a former Kanpei-taisha (Imperial shrine, 1st rank), served as the core of the Three Mountains of Dewa (Mt. Haguro, Mt. Gassan, Mt. Yudono) and became a center for mountain worship and Shugendo from the Heian period onward. Mt. Gassan is an extinct volcano standing 1,984 meters tall, where Shugendo practitioners envisioned a "Pure Land where Tsukuyomi resides" at the summit, aiming for the rebirth of the soul through rigorous mountain asceticism. Within Shugendo, Tsukuyomi developed uniquely as a deity symbolizing the "moon of death and rebirth," occupying a significant position within the complex evolution of mountain worship, Shugendo, and Pure Land Buddhism during the Heian, medieval, and early modern periods. Even today, the "Gassan-mode" (pilgrimage to Mt. Gassan) is carried on as a symbolic custom of Tohoku folklore and Shugendo. The Geography of Tsukuyomi Shrines. The enshrinement sites of Tsukuyomi are distributed across four main lineages: (1) Gassan Shrine in Yamagata Prefecture (Tohoku mountain worship); (2) Tsukiyomi Shrine in Kyoto (central Shinto under the ancient Ritsuryo system); (3) Tsukiyomi-no-miya and Tsukiyomi-no-miya as auxiliary shrines of the Inner and Outer Shrines at Ise Jingu in Mie Prefecture (State Shinto and the Ise Jingu system); and (4) Tsukiyomi Shrine in Iki City, Nagasaki Prefecture (the oldest Tsukuyomi shrine in Japan, tracing the Korean Peninsula route). The Kyoto shrine is considered to have derived its spirit from the Iki shrine, serving as valuable folkloric-geographical evidence showing the route through which lunar worship originating from the continent and the Korean Peninsula was transmitted to ancient Japan. This demonstrates that Tsukuyomi worship is not an isolated phenomenon unique to Japan but the result of formation within a broad East Asian network of lunar beliefs. Tsukuyomi in the 21st Century. In postwar Japanese subculture works—such as the *Megami Tensei* game series, *Okami*, and the "Moon Breathing" in the manga *Demon Slayer*—Tsukuyomi's attributes of tranquility, mystery, isolation, and dark-night moonlight have a high affinity with modern character design. The symbolic deity of "night, moon, tides, calendar, and immortality" in ancient Japanese cosmology continues to acquire new meanings in the 21st-century era of globalization, space exploration, and social media. Pilgrimages to Mt. Gassan, Ise, and various Tsukiyomi shrines are inherited today, and the serene, mysterious lunar faith has been deeply rooted in the spiritual culture of the Japanese from ancient times to the present. The fact that the deity with the least mythological activity continues to live on in the most serene form within modern Japanese spiritual culture symbolizes the profound wonder of how mythological culture is passed down.

A traditional reading of the Tsurube-bi based on Edo-period ghost tales and Sekien’s imagery. Told across Japan as a tree-born will-o’-wisp, its bluish-white fire-orbs dangle from branch tips and bob up and down like a well bucket’s pulley, misleading travelers. The flame is weaker than it looks and is said not to catch on clothes or vegetation. Early-modern accounts cite fire apparitions around Saiin in Kyoto, and later yokai encyclopedias file it as a will-o’-wisp akin to Tsurube-otoshi or as a separate kind. Sightings are said to peak on moonless or misty nights; when approached it slips away, when left it drifts back. A shadowed face sometimes appears, causing confusion with hitodama, yet it is remembered as a local, earthbound fire spirit.

At dusk on a mountain road, a branch creaks once overhead. You look up, but the canopy has already dissolved into darkness. The moment you begin walking again, laughter rings out and an enormous severed head plunges down with the speed of a well bucket. In this form, Tsurube-otoshi turns the simple act of falling into terror. Two scenes from the traditions of the former Sogabe Village, preserved in *Kuchi Tanba Kōhishū*, are especially important for understanding this image. The presence in the kaya tree at Hōki calls, “Is the night work done? Shall I lower the bucket? Creak, creak,” descending with laughter before climbing back into the tree. From an old pine at Tera, by contrast, a severed head drops and eats people. The detail that it stays away for two or three days after feeding makes it more than a passing illusion. It was imagined as a hungry predator lying in wait along the community's night roads. Placed side by side, the two stories reveal a method of attack. First, a voice or the sound of a branch draws the traveler's attention overhead. Then the thing closes the distance at once from the darkness of the canopy. After the attack, it rises again as though a rope were hauling up a well bucket. The name describes its motion more precisely than its appearance. The everyday movement of a bucket at a familiar well, transferred to an old tree at night, becomes a dreadful question: what is about to fall onto the person below? The giant severed head is not Tsurube-otoshi's only form. Hokuriku traditions also record a being that drops the bucket itself from a tree, one that forces travelers into a riddle-like exchange, and one that carries anyone who touches it into the sky. The head is a forceful image connecting the man-eating traditions of Tanba with modern yokai art, but it cannot stand for every regional account. The form described here brings one strand of the wider tradition into focus: Tsurube-otoshi as a predator hidden in an old tree. Nor can its difference from Tsurube-bi be decided by appearance alone. The early-modern Tsurube-oroshi and Sekien's Tsurube-bi center on uncanny fire descending from a tree. The severed-head form instead centers on voice, sudden descent, and predation. Even so, both inhabit old trees and move up and down like a well bucket. No source shows a flame simply transforming into a face, but the evidence is equally insufficient to call the traditions unrelated. A sounder reading is that a shared older name and motion acquired different bodies in different local narratives. Mizuki Shigeru's 1992 original painting *Tsurube-otoshi* clearly embodies the modern impression of an enormous face appearing in a tree. A giant head communicates danger immediately and makes the instant of descent easy to visualize. It was therefore more readily remembered in manga, encyclopedias, and three-dimensional figures than an invisible voice or an ordinary bucket. Yet returning to the local tales after seeing the face lets us hear what the picture cannot show: a question about finished night work, the creak of a rope, the movement of leaves, and a presence drawing closer from somewhere above. Tsurube-otoshi's true domain is not the giant face alone. It is the instant in which a person cannot help but look up.

An edition based on visual readings of Toriyama Sekien’s Konjaku Hyakki Shūi and related images. Depicted as a human figure in Tang-style robes with a candle set upon a tray or stand on the head. Said to have had the voice destroyed by drugs and the body tattooed, composing poems in tears or fingertip blood in place of speech. Its true nature is not a monster per se but the tragic end of a person enslaved in a foreign land, giving it a strongly narrative character of human ethics and suffering, even while included in yokai catalogs. Details vary by source, yet the figure consistently stands in the night holding a light. Accounts of salvation or death are inconsistent and left unspecified.

A reference version based on images of Ubagabi that appear frequently in Edo-period essays and ghost tales. In Kawachi, an old woman who stole oil from a shrine was said to become a ghostly fire after death, drifting around shrine approaches and village paths on rainy nights. In Tanba, it was tied to water calamities on the Hozu River, feared as lights that swarm over the water. It appears as an orange fireball about one shaku in size, at times bearing the face of an old woman or the shadow of a bird. Contact is an omen of misfortune, though accounts note it can be driven off by calling out or by taboo words. With moral contexts of stolen shrine oil, child abandonment tales, and water disasters behind it, the Ubagabi endured as a ghost-fire embodying regional taboos and faith.

Ubagami is not a mere yōkai, but a divine entity embodying the very structure of Tateyama—a sacred mountain where Hell and the Pure Land coexist. In the Tateyama Mandala, Ubagami is depicted alongside underworld motifs such as Sai-no-Kawara (Children's Limbo), the Sanzu River, and the Blood Pool Hell. She possesses two faces: that of Datsueba, who judges the dead, and that of a savior who sends women off to the Pure Land. From the Middle Ages onward, the Blood Bowl Sutra (Ketsubonkyō) faith propagated the belief that women were destined to fall into the Blood Pool Hell due to the supposed impurity of childbirth. Amidst this profound terror, Ubagami functioned as the sole savior for female believers. It is said that the sixty-six statues lined up in the Ubadō of Ashikuraji reflect the "Sixty-Six Provinces Pilgrimage" (Rokujūrokubu), an ancient practice of dedicating one copy of the Lotus Sutra to each of Japan's sixty-six historical provinces. During the Nunobashi Kanjō-e, the experience of crossing the bridge blindfolded and praying in the darkness is nothing less than a ritualistic death and rebirth—letting one's earthly self die temporarily in order to be reborn anew before Ubagami. The tradition identifying her as the wife of Enma Daio creates a complementary dynamic: while the husband acts as the King of Hell who judges the dead, the wife, Ubagami, serves as the compassionate mother who saves women. This interplay brings a sense of yin-yang balance to the underworld cosmology of Tateyama.

The core of this version is not to view the Ubume as a completed "blood-soaked female yokai," but to trace how the relationship between humans and the supernatural changes the moment the baby is received. In *Konjaku Monogatari Shu*, Scroll 27, Tale 43, Taira no Suetake makes a bet in a test of courage with his fellow retainers of Minamoto no Yorimitsu. On a dark night in late September, fully equipped with armor, helmet, and bow, he heads alone to a river crossing in Mino Province to plant an arrow on the opposite shore as proof. On his way back, he is stopped by a woman's voice in the river. The woman presses him, "Hold this," the baby cries, and a strong, fishy stench of blood reaches the guards on the shore. Suetake receives the child on his sleeve, repels the woman who now chases him demanding it back, and takes it straight back to his mansion. When he opened his sleeve, what remained was neither a baby nor a stone, but a few tree leaves. What this scene shows is not the true identity of the Ubume, but the human attitude in the face of the supernatural. Suetake does not slash the woman, nor does he drive her away with prayers; he accepts her request and holds the child. His companions praise his courage, but the end of the tale merely juxtaposes the theory that the Ubume is a shape-shifting fox with the theory that she is the spirit of a woman who died in childbirth, without settling the matter. The fixed tropes of later eras, such as the blood-stained waistcloth, long black hair, and bird wings, are nowhere in the text. In other words, what is fixed in the oldest class of Ubume tales is the dark river crossing, the woman's voice, the crying baby, the stench of blood, the demand to hold it, and the transformation into leaves—not the yokai's appearance. It is in the early modern period that the physical bodies of women who died in childbirth came to the forefront. *Hyaku Monogatari Hyōban* explains that the lingering attachment of a woman who died "upon giving birth" becomes the Ubume, who cries with her lower body dyed in blood. *Kii Zōdanshū* tells the origin story where a pregnant woman who died was abandoned in a field, the child in her womb was born, and the mother's soul walks at night holding the child; it states that those who accept her request to carry the child on their back will be given wealth. Here, the blood of the Ubume is not merely a cruel depiction, but a sign that explicitly carves the cause of death onto the body. At the same time, the act of the encounterer holding the baby is reinterpreted from a test of courage to an act of temporarily taking on the unfulfilled childbirth and child-rearing of the dead. The transformation of the baby rearranges the conclusion of the story depending on the region. In a recording from Niigata City, the child received on the bridge gradually becomes heavier, and upon looking, it has turned into a stone. In a recording from the Naoiri region of Bungo Province, it is said to become a mallet or a stone. On the other hand, in the "Ubume's Gift" type, those who withstand the weight or do not refuse the request are bestowed with superhuman strength, a great sword, and wealth. The baby becoming heavier is not a uniform attack capability, but also a device to test the one holding it. If they cannot bear it, it becomes a horror story; if they hold it all the way through, it becomes a tale of bestowed fortune. This reversal makes it impossible to classify the Ubume purely as an aggressor or purely as a guardian spirit. The waterside functions as the boundary where the Ubume passes her request to the living. The river crossing in *Konjaku Monogatari Shu*, the bridge in Niigata, and the riverbank illustrations of later eras are all places that connect "this side" and "that side." Manami Yasui's iconographic research points out that the *nagare-kanjō*—a custom of hanging a cloth by a river for a woman who died in childbirth and asking passersby to pour water over it to hold a memorial service—is also depicted in Sekien's drawing. While it cannot be definitively concluded that memorial services by water were the origin of all Ubume tales, the structures of "asking a favor of an unknown passerby" and "the dead and the living making contact at the waterside" resonate strongly. The Ubume's request can be read as a story of handing over not only the baby, but also the duty of the memorial service to the next person. The syncretism with the Kōkakuchō (Guhō bird) added wings and the nature of snatching children to the mother's spirit. The nocturnal roaming woman in *Youyang Zazu* becomes a bird when wearing feathers and a woman when taking them off. Because she has no children, she takes the children of others, and it is a bird monster that warns against leaving children's clothes exposed to the night dew. In contrast, the Japanese Ubume tries to entrust the child she is already holding to someone else. Both share the explanation of being a woman who died in childbirth and an attachment to babies, but the direction of action is "snatching" for one and "entrusting" for the other. As Hayashi Razan applying "Kōkakuchō" to the "Ubume-dori" or Nue in the 1631 *Shinkan Tashikihen* shows, this became a major node that folded two stories with opposite directions into a single name. Painters visualized this folding together. In *Hyakkai Zukan*, the Ubume became a member of the named yokai illustrations, and Toriyama Sekien's *Gazu Hyakki Yagyō* consolidated the blood-stained white cloth, the baby, the rain, and the waterside into a single image. Tsukioka Yoshitoshi's *Wakan Hyaku Monogatari*, "Shume-no-Suke Urabe Suetake," takes the medieval Suetake tale as its subject but gives the woman wings on her back, superimposing the image of the Chinese bird monster. Because the original text has no wings, this is not a faithful illustration, but a reinterpretation that returned the "Ubume" understood by 19th-century audiences to the medieval tale. Looking at the iconography chronologically, we can see that the appearance of the Ubume was not the starting point of the folklore, but was created through the accumulation of reading, publishing, and painting. The "Onmesama" handed down at Daigyōji Temple in Kamakura demonstrates another reversal of the Ubume. According to temple legend, in 1532, Priest Nichitō saved a woman who died in a difficult childbirth by chanting sutras, and he built a pagoda for the Ubume to enshrine her as a guardian deity of safe childbirth. Folklore materials recount that the woman appealed to the priest on the bridge over the Namerigawa River, saying, "I cannot cross the river, and the child is sucking on my breasts, causing me pain," and later she requested a pagoda to save people suffering from difficult childbirth. Here, the Ubume who passes her request to the living on a bridge at night moves to the side of helping childbirth after receiving a memorial service. Terror and safe-childbirth beliefs are not separate attributes, but a continuous story of an unsaved spirit transforming into an enshrined deity. Even compared to the closely related Kosodate Yūrei (child-rearing ghost), they cannot be equated simply because of the theme of the death of a mother and child. The core of the Kosodate Yūrei is the story of a mother coming to buy candy to feed her child in the grave even after death; the nurturing continues from mother to child. The Ubume stops others on night roads and temporarily transfers the role of holding the baby. The former is a story of "the dead raising," while the latter is a story of "entrusting to the living." If we relate them while maintaining this difference, we can read the Ubume neither as a beautiful tale of maternal love nor as a punishment for death in childbirth, but as a supernatural encounter where the fear surrounding death in childbirth, memorial services, gift-giving, and the memory of society intersect.