Tsurube-bi is a mysterious fire that moves up and down from treetops at night like a hanging bucket. It appears in Toriyama Sekien’s Gazu Hyakki Yagyō, interpreted as the fiery apparition from Kyoto’s Saiin noted in Edo-period ghost tales. In Shikoku and Kyushu, it’s said to be a wood spirit turning into a bluish-white fireball that dangles from branches. The flames do not burn things, and faces of people or animals sometimes appear within. Considered a type of will-o’-the-wisp, it’s often reported on quiet mountain paths.
Folklore & Legends
Kokon Hyaku Monogatari Hyōban mentions the ghostly fire called the “Tsurube-oroshi of Nishioka,” which Sekien depicted and named “Tsurube-bi.” Postwar sources describe fireballs on mountain roads in Shikoku and Kyushu rising and falling from trees at night, startling travelers without setting anything aflame. Some folklorists suggest bioluminescence from fungi or decaying matter, but local tradition keeps treating it simply as a strange fire spirit.
Yokai Cards2
Tsurube-bi (Bucket Fire) across multiple art-style decks
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.
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 Traditional Aspect (Kaika Will-o’-Wisp). The higher the value of each item, the stronger that characteristic is expressed.
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