Records Library
Most of our articles rest on short records: a story collected in a village and printed in a folklore journal, a line in a prefectural history, a note in a dictionary. This library gives each record its own page — what it says, in English, with the year, the place and where to find the original.
64 records
By decade
1910s
- 1913 The kappa fills its dish before leaving the water
- 1914 Kappa pass the inn at night on their way to the sea
1920s
- 1928 Sōgi's yuki-onna, nearly transparent, gone when looked at
- 1929 The woman on the rock whose scream stopped a wrestler
1930s
- 1930 The fox's fire that never stays still
- 1930 The one-eyed man who asked what the boatman feared most
- 1931 The ghosts always ask for the bailer
- 1931 An old cat's tail splits and it dances
- 1931 The harmless snow spirit who lays felled trees across the valley
- 1932 Rice balls first, then the bottomless ladle
- 1932 Ghost boats, the umi-bōzu, and the half-ghostly iso-onna
- 1932 A place where the mikoshi-nyūdō used to appear
- 1933 The wet woman hands a fisherman a baby, and the ushi-oni follows
- 1934 The thread on the foot and the mulberry stump
- 1935 The alcove at your head when you lie down, at your feet when you wake
- 1938 A bean-washing sound at the water's edge
- 1938 A monster shaped like a bolt of cotton
- 1938 Bamboo rustling overhead, and the words that save you
- 1938 The flying-squirrel thing that covers your eyes and mouth
- 1938 The night road becomes a wall; sweep the bottom with a stick
- 1939 The mouthless bride who became an oni
1940s
- 1943 The washer with a black towel over its head
- 1943 The boy who vanished, and the beans heard on the way home
- 1943 The yamauba comes for her ashinaka sandal
- 1948 The snake wife and the needles in the rice
1950s
- 1956 The white bolt that dazzles and attacks
- 1956 The woman who walks ahead on the riverside road and beckons
- 1956 The zashiki-warashi who turns pillows but harms no one
- 1956 The nurikabe, also called nuribō
- 1956 The hunter's son told not to make a sound
- 1959 Otters that become girls, and the ox that would not move
1960s
- 1960 The long-tailed shark that strikes at the shore
- 1961 The crying from the weeping river
- 1962 The yamauba of the katsura tree who came to borrow fire
- 1963 Umihime-sama asks the boatmen to carry souls ashore
1970s
- 1973 The tengu's flute, the voice in the night, and the morning with no trace
- 1974 The thunder beast of Karasuyama that rides its own cloud
- 1975 The yamauba who brings wealth and takes it away
- 1976 The ingame kept by certain houses
- 1976 The thirty-metre shape on a calm sea off Awa and Tosa
- 1977 The spider who came as a bride
- 1978 Beans being washed under the bridge on rainy nights
1980s
- 1980 The raijū that fell at Iwatsuki and would not eat
- 1982 The kawabiso that pulled a horse's leg
- 1982 The yamauba floats rice cakes down the stream at New Year
- 1983 The child taken by a tengu, found by a pair of sandals
- 1983 The umi-bōzu borrows the bailer and sinks the boat
- 1984 The blue monk asks a girl one question
- 1984 Meet a yamauba and keep a straight face
- 1985 The ruined boat that asks for a ladle
- 1985 Lend the akatori with its bottom out
- 1985 The house on the demonic ridge line turns its sleepers
- 1986 The sound by the pools is a weasel chattering its teeth
- 1987 The visitor at the eaves who vanished and left footprints
- 1989 The jorōgumo, master of Jōren Falls
1990s
- 1990 The spirit of the falls returns the axe, and telling costs a life
- 1990 'I've looked over you' makes the giant shrink
- 1992 The human-faced dog fled Tokyo because of the fuss
- 1992 Where the human-faced dog appears
- 1992 Bodies taken by the kasha during funerals
- 1992 The cat that trains in the mountains and comes home a nekomata
- 1992 The yamauba of Kotozuka who lent dishes but never showed her face
- 1998 The room where Mitsukuni once slept