A yokai depicted by Toriyama Sekien in his Hyakki Tsurezurebukuro. It takes the form of a tattered cloth billowing like a dragon in the wind; Sekien glosses it as “an old wiping cloth that has transformed.” The name is thought to pun on “Shirōururi,” a figure from Essays in Idleness (Tsurezuregusa). It is generally understood as a tsukumogami created by Sekien’s design. The work does not detail specific harms or behavior, and later interpretations often add their own ideas.
Folklore & Legends
Rooted in Edo-period picture scrolls and yokai art rather than any single local folktale. Sekien frequently illustrated the conceit of old tools and rags becoming monsters, and Shirōneri belongs to that lineage. From the Showa era onward, some sources claim it troubles people with stench or slime, but these accounts trace to modern inventions and lack support in regional tradition.
Anchored in Toriyama Sekien’s imagery, this version sees an aged dishcloth trailing long and fluttering in the wind, reimagined as a yokai. The original illustration offers little about harming humans, so it is understood as a symbol of attachment to old objects and the impermanence of things. Aggressive traits found in later ghost tales should be kept separate; here the focus is the eerie nature of a “moving old cloth” and the visual impression of it gliding between walls under a night lamp.
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 Based on Sekien’s Illustrations. The higher the value of each item, the stronger that characteristic is expressed.
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