Yokai Encyclopedia

The Female Tengu is a strand within the broader image of tengu sporadically referenced in texts and oral lore. She is depicted in women’s attire such as kosode, light robes, or scarlet hakama, yet her back-borne wings and supernatural power mark her as a tengu. In The Tale of the Heike and its offshoots, the nun-tengu appears as a metamorphosis born from religious decline, providing a female counterpart to the monk-tengu. Edo-period mountain-encounter tales often stress prohibitions against women, noting the absence of female tengu, while river-tengu lore sporadically mentions married pairs or feminine features. Claims tracing their lineage to the goddess Amanozakoyahime appear in early modern natural-history writings but remain interpretive rather than doctrinal. Regional variation is great and no single image dominates, yet they share the general tengu attributes of might, illusion, and flight. Stripped of creative exaggeration, the Female Tengu is best seen as a projection of womanhood within the tengu world, with specific names and genealogies largely unknown.

Based on images from illustrated Edo-period strange tales. It hides in northern mountains and fields and moves from twilight into early night. It appears as a small beast like a badger or a giant flying squirrel, and when attacking it blinds a person to sow confusion. Sources describe two modes: one covers the victim’s face with its whole body, the other spits a bat-like thing that clings to the face. Some accounts say it drinks blood, while later interpretations suggest it steals carried food while the victim’s sight is blocked. Historical conflation with badgers, tanuki, nobusuma, and bats led to shifting names and traits. A simple defense recorded is to keep rolled ear-shaped leaves in one’s bosom, though details vary by region and era. Avoids modern embellishment and follows classical picture compendia.

A figure based on Edo-period records. On rainy nights it drifts low, coming and going like a procession of lantern lights. Rather than misleading travelers, it was dreaded for bringing illness to anyone who drew near, and the only recourse was to lie flat on the ground until it passed. Local names vary, and it is classed as one type of strange fire from Ise Province. Its substance is unknown, it makes little sound, and reports note few sensory details such as heat or odor even at close range.

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.”

A version based on the recurring grotesque motif in Edo-period yokai picture scrolls: a head with limbs attached directly to it. Many sources lack captions, and names vary, such as “Gotaimen” and “People of the Lower Country.” The figure often stands bowlegged and sidesteps, heightening visual dissonance and comic effect. Folklorists debate whether such visual oddities caricature social decorum and misalignment, yet no direct oral tradition is recorded. This version prioritizes the repetition of the image and the spread of names, avoids attaching behavior or powers, and limits the setting to generic outdoor scenes. Later studies and commentaries are consulted, but attributes beyond primary sources are not added.

Senkūki is a yokai born when a well-worn yo-yo from a summer festival absorbs moonlight. It moves with lightning speed, leaving trails of light each time it is cast. Sometimes it tangles its string around a person’s wrist, sometimes it dances in the night sky with an eerie glow, enchanting onlookers. In the hands of the unskilled, its string runs wild, tripping its owner and knocking things over in mischievous pranks.

In Honjo, Edo, this house-bound tsukumogami-like apparition manifests as a single gigantic foot descending from the ceiling to demand washing. It speaks human words and subsides when the ritual act of washing is performed, aligning with household notions of purification. Its true identity is left undefined and has been variously told as demon, monster, beastly shapeshifter, or a transformed house deity. Though threatening, some variants include a protective role that crushes thieves, and tales warn that forced exorcism angers it, reflecting urban ghost lore that prizes proper response over rash banishment. Regional lore varies—ending after a house change, or requiring a woman to do the washing—but the core remains: only the foot appears, and washing makes it withdraw.

Among residents of housing blocks and apartments, people have long whispered that if fridge magnets fall or move on their own, it is the work of the Fridge Guardian. In one home, opening the refrigerator at night revealed a single magnet shifted to a new spot, and the next day the head of the house forgot to use meat in the freezer and let it spoil. In another home, a child was found crying before the fridge at night, and when asked why, replied, “A voice from the refrigerator told me to eat snacks.” From tales like these, the Fridge Guardian came to be known as a modern yokai that disrupts people’s eating rhythms.

The Theology of "Strict yet Gentle" Duality. The greatest iconographic and doctrinal feature of Fudo Myo-o is the intense contrast between his terrifying appearance and the profound compassion he harbors within. A Wisdom King (Myo-o) is a Buddha who deliberately transforms into a fearsome figure to persuade and instruct; Fudo Myo-o is thus another face of Dainichi Nyorai, the universe's ultimate truth. His wrath is not born of hatred toward evil, but rather an expression of the "extreme limit of compassion" to save wandering souls at any cost. This duality is the primary reason he gathered such broad worship across all classes, from strictly disciplinarian monks to anonymous commoners praying for daily peace. A Hybrid of Worldly Benefits and Memorial Services. Originally, in Esoteric doctrine, Fudo Myo-o was a spiritual pillar meant to lead practitioners to enlightenment. However, as he fused with Japanese indigenous beliefs, he assumed extremely pragmatic roles. From dispelling diseases to preventing fires, and even ensuring modern traffic safety, he acts as a "breakwater" against every threat in daily life. Simultaneously, in the Thirteen Buddhas belief system, he is deeply involved in memorial services for the dead, acting as the guiding deity for the first seventh-day mourning period. Thus, he transformed into an omnipotent guardian deity relied upon throughout the entire process from life to death. Fudo Myo-o and His Retainers. Fudo Myo-o is often depicted in a triad accompanied by Kongara Doji and Seitaka Doji, or surrounded by numerous retainers such as the Eight Great Youths (Hachidai Doji) or the Thirty-Six Youths. This illustrates how Fudo Myo-o's immense power was subdivided to build a system capable of meticulously addressing the diverse wishes of all people. The visual contrast of placing innocent, childlike attendants beside a terrifying central deity is also one of the unique aesthetic and religious expressions achieved by Japanese Buddhist art.

An interpretation grounded in the imagery and captions of Toriyama Sekien’s Hyakki Tsurezure Bukuro. The document cart was a conveyance for papers in the imperial court, temples, and aristocratic residences, kept ready for emergencies. The accumulated sentiments within long-kept love letters are thought to congeal and manifest as a lady-in-waiting–like apparition. With little basis in oral tradition, this is a conceptual yokai born of early modern literature and painting, more often told as a presence that displays and summons remorse than as one causing concrete harm. The customary name is Fumikuruma Yohi, though later sources sometimes confuse it with Fumikuruma Yoki.

The true identity of Fujin is Shinatsuhiko-no-Kami (Shinatsuhiko, Shinatsuhiko-no-Mikoto), as recorded in the *Kojiki* and the *Nihon Shoki*. The first volume of the *Kojiki* (712) explicitly states in the god-birth section, "Next, they gave birth to the wind god named Shinatsuhiko-no-Kami," while in the *Nihon Shoki* (720), Volume 1, Section 5, the deity appears under multiple names such as Shinatobe-no-Mikoto and Shinatsuhiko-no-Mikoto. The divine name "Shina" (long breath) is an ancient Japanese word representing "breath/wind," and "tsu" (of) + "hiko" (male god) translates to "the male god of long breath," essentially the personification of breath and wind itself. The core of Fujin worship in the ancient state was Tatsuta Taisha (formerly Tatsuta Fujin-sha). Located in Heguri District, Yamato Province (now Tatsunominami, Sango-cho, Ikoma-gun, Nara Prefecture), it stands at a location directly hit by the strong downdraft winds (oroshi) blowing from the Ikoma Mountains into the Yamato Basin. The *Nihon Shoki* already mentions worshiping the "Fujin of Tatsuta" in the year 675 AD (Emperor Tenmu's 4th year). During the Ritsuryo period, the "Tatsuta Fujin Festival" was held by imperial decree every April (praying for favorable winds before the Niiname harvest festival) and July (before the typhoon season) as one of the Jingikan's Four Seasons Festivals. It was officially registered in the *Engishiki* (927) deity register as the Tatsuta Shrine Four Pillars (with Amenomihashira-no-Mikoto and Kuninomihashira-no-Mikoto as primary deities) and was highly regarded in state rituals as the wind god of bountiful harvests. From the Middle Ages, Fujin worship was succeeded by Kazemiya (Kazahinomi-no-miya) at Ise Jingu, Suwa Taisha (which enshrines Takeminakata but also holds Fujin aspects), Echizen Tsurugi Shrine, and Sada Shrine in Izumo. Iconographically, Tawaraya Sotatsu's "Fujin and Raijin Folding Screens" (circa 1620s, formerly at Kennin-ji in Kyoto, designated a National Treasure in 1952, currently deposited at the Kyoto National Museum) is the definitive work. On the two-panel, double-screen golden background, the Wind God on the right (a green demon wearing only a tiger-skin loincloth, carrying a wide-open wind bag on his shoulders) and the Thunder God on the left (a white demon carrying a circle of drums) face off, creating tension in the empty space between them. This composition is considered the pinnacle of the early Edo Rimpa school. Later, painters like Ogata Korin (1700s) and Sakai Hoitsu (1800s) left behind faithful copies of Sotatsu's original "Fujin and Raijin Folding Screens" (Korin's at the Tokyo National Museum, Hoitsu's at the Idemitsu Museum of Arts), which irreversibly cemented the standard imagery for Fujin in Japan. The wind bag held by Fujin traces its origins to the iconography of the Hellenistic Boreas (god of the North Wind). In ancient Greece, Boreas was depicted holding a wind bag open over his shoulders. Following Alexander the Great's eastern campaigns, this image was adopted into the Buddhist art of Gandhara in Central Asia, and it traveled along the Silk Road through China (as seen in the Fujin statues at the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang) and Korea, finally reaching Japan. Vāyu (Fujin) in Sanskrit belongs to the same lineage and is deified as "Futen" within the Twelve Devas of Esoteric Buddhism. Sotatsu's rendering of the wind bag represents the unique Japanese culmination crystallized at the very end of this long transmission. In folk religion, Fujin clearly displays ambivalent divine traits. The aspect of a calamitous deity (Akufujin) who summons typhoons, autumn gales, and storms coexists with the aspect of a benevolent deity (Zenfujin) who presides over the favorable winds sweeping across the fields during the wheat and rice harvests. Rituals embodied a dual structure of both pacifying and praying to these two sides. During the Edo period, the "sending away the god of colds" (when a cold circulated, a straw doll fashioned as Fujin, holding a straw hat and a lantern, was driven out to the village edge or a riverbank to the sound of gongs and drums) was widely practiced across the Tohoku, northern Kanto, and Hokushin'etsu regions, revealing his aspect as a god of pestilence personifying influenza. This is also important as the prehistory of modern public health awareness. In modern literature, Kenji Miyazawa's *Matasaburo of the Wind* (1934) adapted the legend of the "Wind Saburo" (wind-god boy tales passed down near Morioka and the Sanriku coast) in the Tohoku region, making the lineage of wind-child worship known nationwide. Post-war, the contrasting pairing of "Fujin and Raijin" became entrenched in games, anime, and manga (e.g., the Wind Fiend in Square's *Final Fantasy* series, themes in Studio Ghibli's *The Wind Rises*, various wind god summons), carrying the iconographic lineage that began with the National Treasure "Fujin and Raijin Folding Screens" into contemporary subculture.

This version follows the Taiheiki, Book 16 “Affairs of Japan’s Enemies.” The Four Oni serve under Fujiwara no Chikata with clearly divided roles, complementing each other’s arts in battle. The Gold Oni forms the vanguard with a body that repels blades and arrows, the Wind Oni scatters ranks with gales, the Water Oni summons flood and torrent across any terrain, and the Hidden Oni erases form and presence to handle scouting and ambush. Their might is framed less as stratagem than as a tendency to yield before kotodama and prayer, epitomized by their dispersal through a waka by Ki no Asao. Later legends of Sakanoue no Tamuramaro and Kumano slayings alter their order and exploits, yet the core remains: four disparate powers combine to overmatch human effort, but bow to righteous words. The notion of ninja origins is a later reading; in folklore studies this is a case of war-epic demon tales binding to local toponymic lore. Creative variants abound, but this version keeps to gunki conventions and limits places and figures to sources within the epic.

This version of Fujiwara-no-hirotsugu bears the political history before he became a vengeful spirit (onryo). He was not a monster from the beginning. While involved in central politics as a member of the Fujiwara clan, he was distanced to Dazaifu during political strife, and raised an army claiming criticism against Kibi no Makibi and Genbo. His onryo nature is born after that defeat. Hirotsugu's rebellion was an incident where the power struggle of the capital was moved to the military space of Kyushu. Dazaifu was a key point of diplomacy and military affairs, and the dissatisfaction of Hirotsugu placed there expanded beyond mere personal feelings. Gathering an army, being pursued, captured, and executed. The plot of the rebellion is short, but the spiritual shadow it leaves behind is long. What is important in this version is not to view an onryo as a "ghost that suddenly appears after death." In Japanese Goryo belief, divine aura is created by intertwining political injustice, regretful death, fears of plagues and disasters, and pacification rituals. Hirotsugu can be read as a figure who demonstrated the structure leading to Prince Sawara and Sugawara no Michizane at an early stage. In other words, he is a foreshadowing of the Goryo belief. The folklore related to Kagami Shrine shows the process of a central rebel turning into a regional divine spirit. The name of the person defeated in the capital remains in the land of Kyushu, pacified in rituals and folklore. The one removed from the center of history gains another center in a peripheral land. This reversal pairs well with YOKAI.JP's place articles. The connection with Genbo is a strong thread that turns Hirotsugu into a narrative. The story reading the later misfortune of the monk named as a political enemy as the work of Hirotsugu's spirit shows the imagination of onryo tales, separate from the confirmation of historical facts. Grudges do not return straight to the opponent, but are spoken of over time, wrapping in anxieties about politics, religion, and disease. In modern cards and diagnoses, it is better to express Hirotsugu as a pressure lingering between the lines of records, rather than a flashy monster. Rather than armor, the dark government offices of Dazaifu, the execution ground by the sea, the torn memorial, the shrine of Kagami, and a gaze turned toward the distant capital suit him better. He demonstrates the pattern of someone nearly erased by the victor's story returning to history as a spirit. Hirotsugu is worth writing about carefully precisely because his form as an onryo is not flashily fixed. An ambiguous spirit can be expressed not as thin documentation, but as a layer of history. The rebellion recorded in the official history, the rituals remaining in the region, and the connection with political enemies overlap little by little, becoming a pressure with an unclear outline. That is where his terror lies. In the group of Goryo belief pages, Hirotsugu is suited for both introduction and deep dives. Going to Prince Sawara reveals the tragedy of imperial succession; going to Sugawara no Michizane reveals the transformation into a god of learning; going to Taira no Masakado reveals the martial might of the eastern provinces. Placing Hirotsugu before them allows one to understand how onryo are born from political history over a longer timeline. If making this version into a card, rather than terrifyingly exaggerating the face, one would want to combine the torn memorial, the sea facing the distant capital, the Kagami Shrine, and the shadow of the subjugation army. Rather than a monstrous appearance, Hirotsugu is a spirit standing between record and memory. That modest darkness fits YOKAI.JP's profound onryo lineup.

A version grounded in the image and brief annotation from Toriyama Sekien’s Hyakki Tsurezure Bukuro. It appears as a womanly mujina carrying a night-duty bag over her shoulder, yet from another angle the bag itself may be the yokai, with the porter’s pose serving as a metaphor. Its conduct lures people into rash judgments and lays bare the absurdity of empty speculation. Actual harm is slight, limited to confronting those who “rummage in the bag” of guesswork on night roads or in parlors and leaving them disgraced. True to picture-scroll lineage, no fixed era or locale is given, favoring witty identification and playful satire.

Fukurokuju is the anthropomorphic deity that integrates the three Daoist stars of China (the Gods of Fortune, Wealth, and Longevity) into a single body. Among the three, the Star of Longevity (the Old Man of the South Pole = Canopus) is an ancient astronomical deity recorded in the astronomical chapters of the "Records of the Grand Historian" and the "Book of Jin," and a year in which it could be seen was said to augur world peace. The Star of Fortune was associated with Jupiter, and the Star of Wealth with the Wenchang star of the Big Dipper. Although each initially had its own independent following, the "Sanxingtu" (Three Stars Image), depicting them together, was established in the Song dynasty and popularized as New Year decorations for the masses throughout the Ming and Qing dynasties. The singular deity Fukurokuju is the anthropomorphized amalgamation of these three stars. Multiple origin tales coexist, including the theory that he is the incarnation of the Song Daoist Tiannanxing, and the theory that he is the incarnation of the Old Man of the South Pole himself. His iconography depicts him as short in stature with an unusually elongated head, bearing a long white beard, attaching a scroll to the head of his staff, and accompanied by a crane or turtle. This is the epitome of Daoist iconography: the "short body and long head" are physical auspices of long life, the scroll signifies the mastery of the Dao, and the crane and turtle represent auspicious beasts of longevity. Introduced to Japan in the late Muromachi period (15th century) likely through Zen monks' travels to China and imported Daoist-Buddhist paintings, the Zen and painter-monk circles of the Higashiyama culture period reorganized him into the "Seven Gods of Fortune and Virtue." By combining the already indigenized Ebisu, Daikokuten, Bishamonten, and Benzaiten with the fellow imported deities Hotei and Jurojin, they grouped them as the seven fortune deities styled after the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove—the prototype of the current Seven Lucky Gods. Fukurokuju's inherent dilemma lies in the problem of being the same entity under a different name as Jurojin; since both are incarnations of the Old Man of the South Pole, theories considering them the same deity have existed since ancient times. Although early modern popular encyclopedias like Kaibara Ekken's "Yamato Koto Hajime" list them as distinct entities, irregular Seven Lucky Gods variations replacing Jurojin with Kisshoten, Fukusuke, or Inari also circulated in Edo period Takarabune paintings. Because Fukurokuju simultaneously presides over three virtues (descendants, wealth, and longevity), he was favored for family celebrations by merchants and samurai. For longevity prayers by the clergy, however, Jurojin was often chosen. Their division of roles loosely converged in the late early-modern period as "the comprehensive fortune deity of the secular world (Fukurokuju)" and "the ascetic deity of longevity (Jurojin)."

The Funayūrei of Dan-no-ura are said to be the shades of the Taira who sank in the Battle of Dan-no-ura. On misty nights where currents meet in the western sea, they draw alongside a boat with water streaming from their armor and quietly ask for a teigo—a hisage, or handled pouring vessel. Their faces are white, their eyes reddened by salt, and their voices hoarse, yet their words still preserve the etiquette of the warrior class. They keep the order of their former battle lines even at sea: one spirit calls out first, then countless hands seize the planks together. If the bowl or ladle they receive has an intact bottom, they use it to pour seawater into the boat until it sinks without a sound. People who crossed these waters therefore pierced the bottoms of such vessels in advance and kept them tied beside the rail. When the ghosts accept one, the water runs straight through, and their rancor disperses with the tide. If a monk holds a memorial service and chants sutras, the silhouettes of their jingasa dissolve into the sea mist and the clink of armor chains returns to the sound of the waves. They do not attack everyone without cause. The stories bring them closest to people who ignore maritime custom or arrogantly treat the sea with contempt, as if the dead meant to impress the memory of the Taira defeat upon the living. On the sixteenth day of Bon, during the equinoctial weeks, or on an anniversary of the battle, the quieter the sea becomes, the nearer the tread of armor seems. Ghost lights line the water like watchfires, reproducing the fleet of long ago. Ash, rice cakes, fragrant flowers, and dumplings can soften their fixation. Cast from the bow, an offering may bring back a single wave like the sleeve of a shirabyōshi dancer and push the vessel onward. Some accounts say an unflinching stare can also make them withdraw. Elders explain that this is not a contest of will: when the living truly face the dead, the stagnant resentment begins to loosen. Yamaoka Genrin described apparitions as a congealing of ki; here, soot-dark grievance takes shape upon the current. When the wind changes, sutras sound, and offerings sink, that loosened force scatters back into the sea. These Funayūrei are therefore not creatures of terror alone. Remembrance can bring them rest. A child's outline sometimes appears among their ranks. Its voice is finer still, and it asks for no water; it only hooks small fingers over the rail. If the faint bells of armor can be heard, the crew should steady the helm, take the Hayatomo current at an angle, and send a murmured nembutsu into the wind. The battle-dead adrift in the western darkness yield only to proper rites and compassion.

A variant of the boat ghost that appears with the call of “Inada-kase” along the Fukushima coast. On calm nights, in drifting fog, or before a squall, pale hands and wet sleeves line the gunwale, and a chill voice repeats “lend the inada” from the waves. The inada is a bailer ladle for scooping water from a boat; once lent, the spirit pours seawater back into the craft to sink it. It rarely shows its face head-on, the visage veiled in sea mist, only dripping cuffs and black eyes glinting in the lamp’s edge. Reasonable at heart yet tasked with judging neglect and breaches of maritime order, it favors the sixteenth day of Obon, the dark of the moon, and fishing grounds where memorial rites have lapsed. Traditional countermeasures say to hand over a ladle with its bottom removed; the spirit accepts out of courtesy, but the water spills back to the sea. A pinch of rice ball, hearth ash, or salt-purified rice cake cast with the words “this is an offering” also satisfies its claim. If met with turmoil or shouting, it flies into a rage, unseen hands weighing the oars, dimming the compass, and warping the tide lines. They are a host of the drowned, a balance of the sea, and a mirror of neglected tools and unkept rites. Thus fishers notch their bailer, tie a sprig of shiso or a straw, purify it, and bow to the boat spirit before setting out. Because the ghost returns borrowed tools to the sea, the ladle may wash ashore by morning crusted with salt flowers. On windless nights when the helm grows heavy and water sounds along the side, add no lights, raise no voice, and quietly offer the inada; then the spirit cannot fulfill its debt and slips away in shame.

A variant of the funayurei recorded in Tsuma Village, Oki District, Shimane. On nocturnal seas, clusters of faint lights gathering are called Murasa. Locals call the countless drifting sea sparkle nigashio. When that flow blurs into a single round mass that pulses like a pale blue breath, it is feared not as mere sea gleam but as remnants of the drowned lodging in the tide, namely Murasa. It will suddenly gather before a bow to bar the way, dimly lighting the surface and throwing off the sense of course. If a boat rides over it, the light scatters at once to the four directions, shadows on deck and gunwale sway strangely, and though the helm bites, the hull feels as if spinning uselessly on the sea. Not individual ghosts grasping with limbs, but a swarm of lights stroking the hull and upsetting the rhythm of the waves to lure toward grounding, they say. Late at night, when the sea flashes “chik” bright as day for a beat and all falls still, villagers say one is “possessed by Murasa,” stop the rudder, lash a dagger or kitchen knife to a pole, and cut the surface three times. At the sound of blade parting tide, the light thins like unwinding thread and scatters back into ordinary nigashio. Local lore holds that passing a bottomless dipper or throwing rice balls or ash has little effect here, while quietly setting incense flowers or dumplings adrift makes the light keep its circle, skirt the boat, and open a path. Murasa raises no voice, nor demands a bailer. Yet on the sixteenth of Obon the rings double and triple, drawing near and away, harboring an inner dark like a ghost ship’s shadow. Working the sea then is forbidden, for even a veteran skipper is dazzled and drawn to the cape’s black rocks. Its color is cold yet clear, and when met with shouts and disorder it flickers as if with a thin smile. Before those who ravage or foul the sea, the ring narrows and only the water at one’s feet grows unnaturally bright, leaving no escape. Conversely, for those who mourn kin lost at sea and make offerings, it lays a guiding streak in the offshore dark and sets distant whitecaps in relief to lead to safe water veins. Thus Murasa is both a drowning ghost and a guiding ghostlight. On Tsuma’s shore, the custom remains on the first catch night to chant words that calm both sea gods and the dead, then cut the tide with a blade before casting the nets. The light cannot be scooped by hand, nor a voice seized, yet it readily dissolves its form in answer to the threefold cutting rite and quiet offerings, returning to mere nigashio.

Across the west coast of Kyushu—especially from Hirado in Nagasaki to Amakusa and Goshoura Island—a variant of the funayurei is known as the Ugume. It appears in night fog or under a windless overcast stillness: an old sailboat with bellied sails despite no wind, or a small unmanned skiff, gliding up silently from behind. Its lights are faint, wavering along the gunwales like something between flame and fireflies. The closer it comes, the farther the sound of waves recedes; though the vessel seems to move forward, the surface of the sea slips backward. This is the sign of possession: cold water seeps into the bilge, oars grow heavy, and the compass drifts a hair off. The Ugume has no fixed form, sometimes turning into the silhouette of an island to lure boats, sometimes showing a non-existent cove offshore to run them aground. From the shadow of a rotted mast it will murmur, “Give me a bilge-scoop,” asking for a scoop or ladle to bail. One must hand over a scoop with a hole in the bottom; give a sound one by mistake and it will pour water over the gunwale without cease, weighing the boat down to sink. In Hirado they say a pinch of ash cast upon the sea will lift the fog. On Goshoura, one calls out “Dropping anchor!” throws a stone first, then casts the anchor—a ritual aligning words and action to tell what lies below, “We intend to stay here,” whereupon the Ugume loosens its hold. A thread of tobacco smoke will also thin it, sending it retreating toward the stern. Offerings include rice balls, rice cakes, and a small amount of ash, and special caution is urged on the sixteenth day of Obon. The Ugume are less indiscriminate vengeful ghosts than a host of those who slipped outside the sea’s order, drawn by lapses in shipboard manners, careless speech, or neglected greetings to the sea gods. If faced squarely, with proper names and rites observed, they slip back into the shadow of the tide. The fear that “it disguises itself as boats or islands” along Kyushu’s west coast reflects memories rooted in fickle currents and tangled shoals—an embodiment of losing one’s way at sea. Ugume also portend maritime misfortune; in fishing villages it is said that on nights they draw near, someone somewhere has lost the path home.

A variant of the funayurei remembered along the coast from Choshi City through the old Kaijo District. On stormy nights when fog smothers the sea and whitecaps rise, it approaches from the offshore dark chanting “mōren yassa mōren yassa” in the rhythm of oar beats. The voice rises and falls with wind and current, then stops just beneath the gunwale. A moment later a black dripping arm reaches up from the water and croaks, “Lend a scoop.” Locals gloss mōren as “restless dead,” inaga as “water ladle,” and yassa as the chant for bringing boats in line. When these three arrive together, it portends a surge of drowning souls trying to board. They are a collective of those lost to the sea who have no shore to return to, strongest on the 16th of Obon and on the monthly death-days of the unlaid. Their aim is to sink the boat and add new hands to their wet rail. With the borrowed ladle they tap in seawater, and to the yassa beat they shift the water’s weight toward the bilge until the boat is swallowed. Time-honored countermeasures are set. First, hand over a ladle with the bottom knocked out. Showing a vessel that takes from the sea but not the boat convinces the dead that “water will not enter the hull” and breaks their rhythm. Second, fix them with a stare and hold the boat still. Do not steer, face the wave crests, breathe short, and the swarm loses its heading and melts into the fog. Third, throw ash or rice balls. Ash, as the remnant of shore-fire, points a way home, and rice balls salted for the sea serve as an offering to calm the tide. In Choshi, the one who calls the first haul keeps a guarded tongue, for Mouren Yassa is keen to a skipper’s words. Taboos are strict: putting out to sea on Obon’s 16th, scorning the foghorn and not sounding it, or laughing with the tide-waiting torii at your back will summon them. Their form shifts: they may pace you as a ghost ship under a furled white sail, or press the prow like the shadow of an umibozu. Yet what lingers in the ear is always the beat of “mōren yassa,” and when it fades, the danger passes. Early modern picture books paint them as vengeful spirits, but elder fishers call them “the voice that restates the sea’s law.” If flowers or dumplings are set afloat at the shore, by morning the prow-weed is shed and net frays are stilled. The name later was written as “Fierce Spirits, Eight Calamities,” a dread title of wild might, but at root they are a drifting host. If you hear them offshore, knock out the ladle’s bottom, set your prow straight, and mind your words—that is the shorewise rule kept at Choshi.

A variant of the funayurei from Kosode in Ube Village, Kunohe District, Iwate (now Kosode, Kuji City), whispered locally as the Namōrei. During night squalls or heavy sea fog, a small black-painted boat with a high stern and low prow appears soundlessly, as if running back along a tide line offshore. Its silhouette parts no waves, only blurs the surface like ink, and though no oar or sail is seen, it glides forward. One or several shadowy figures in glossy black garments stand along the gunwale, and only their voices slice through the wind. In a low, lingering tone they demand, “Hand over an oar,” or “Answer,” and if one replies, they at once sheer alongside and seize the other boat’s heading and helm. The Namōrei are the remnants of those who perished at sea and could not return home, craving oars and sculls—the “power to bring one back.” Elders warn that answering opens the mouth of one’s soul, and lending an oar is akin to yielding a boat’s lifeline. Thus in Kosode, when called from the sea at night, one must never respond, but either stand at the rail and glare steadily, or keep one’s hat brim pulled low in silence. The Namōrei are weak to the eye; met with a powerful gaze, they and their black boat melt into the tide fog. If they ask for an oar and are given a bottomless ladle, a split oar, or a holed bamboo scoop—“useless things”—their fixation breaks as seawater spills out at once. This is the widespread funayurei art of “passing the empty,” and along the Tohoku coast, refusing to answer and never handing over anything of substance were especially prized. The black boat appears when the stars hang low, on the sixteenth night of Obon, or when the offshore singing sands cry. White handprints multiplying on the rail and the gunwale growing heavy and low foretell their clinging approach. In contrast, scattering a pinch of rice or ash from one’s palm and sweeping it thrice to sea is said to dissolve the prints into the tide. In Kosode’s rocky coves, sailors shun picking up driftwood oars and loading them, and before setting out they tie a single thread to the oar’s handle to mark a “way home.” The Namōrei are keen to advantage, following slips of speech and bonds of lending to insinuate themselves, so banter and calling across boats are taboo. At a break in the morning fog the black craft vanishes at once, leaving only a chill tang of brine and dark water-spots on the rail. Those who see it refrain from offshore nets that year and offer incense, flowers, and dumplings to the beach deity, as old custom dictates.

An arrangement of Furafurabu based on the depiction in Toriyama Sekien’s Hyakki Tsurezure Bukuro. The lantern is tied to bamboo, its torn paper resembling a mouth, tilting as it looms over the road. The scene evokes rice field ridges and scarecrows, and while the caption mentions “the lantern fire of Yamada,” it also muses that it might be foxfire. This yields competing readings—either a fox in disguise or a transformed implement—but since the volume files it among tool-spirits, understanding it as a tsukumogami is appropriate. The name varies between “Fufuraku” on the image and “Furakaku” in the catalog, though “Furafurabu” is generally accepted. No fixed local legends or concrete curse tales survive; it is received as a subtype of the generic lantern yōkai, a visual fright that startles travelers at night.

Based on Edo-period picture scrolls, this version standardizes Furari-bi as a bird-shaped eerie flame wreathed in fire. It behaves more like a phenomenon than a corporeal being, with sightings reported from dusk through midnight. Confirmed cases of causing harm are scarce, and it shares common will-o’-the-wisp traits such as vanishing when approached and reappearing when one retreats. In Toyama it is called “Burari-bi,” often explained as a ghostly fire born from grudges or the unclaimed dead, though interpretations vary by region. The avian visage in the iconography is ambivalent, serving as a symbolic sign of the soul’s metamorphosis.

The *Furisode-no-kai* is characterized by the fact that it is an "anomaly where an object and a disaster become one," lacking the form of a specific yokai. Its core consists of a dual structure: on the inside, there is the curse of an object where a *furisode* imbued with the thoughts of the dead takes the life of its new owner (a passion akin to a *tsukumogami*); on the outside, there is the great disaster where the fire burning the *furisode* loses control and burns down the entire city. The former is a typical example of the many "cursed garments and mementos" tales in Edo, while the latter is the real historical tragedy of the Great Fire of Meireki. The originality of this ghost story lies in stitching the two together. For the residents of Edo, fires were the greatest terror. While praised as "Fires and brawls are the flowers of Edo," once a fire spread, the wooden cityscape easily turned to ashes. The *Furisode-no-kai* can be said to be a product of imagination unique to urban ghost stories, translating that terror into an easily digestible tale of a single garment's fate, giving a face and a reason to an indiscriminate disaster.