Adventures with Yokai: The Fisherman’s Past

Shuten doji's hug head with long red hair and yellowed horns with his blue-skinned oni bandits with snowy pine trees and snow covered houses.

Meet the Yokai

Oni

As the villains of many stories, these club-wielding, loincloth-wearing, wild-haired ogres are well-known icons of Japanese folklore. Oni mostly inhabit remote and abandoned regions of Japan.

These fearsome giants come in a variety of sizes and colors; even their horns, tusks, fingers, and toes vary in number. Oni are all male and many were once human. They have a natural inclination to banditry and enjoy eating humans, livestock, and sake.

Shuten Dōji

Shuten Dōji is king of the oni and known as one of the great evils. The stories suggest that Shuten Dōji was once a human with a love of evildoing and heavy drinking.

Shuten Dōji’s army of oni bandits would raid the countryside to keep his mountain lair filled with barrels of stolen sake, kidnapped servants, and people to eat. However, Shuten Dōji’s evil reign was eventually ended by the hero Raikō.

Four January Pine cards from Night Parade playing cards.Shuten doji's hug head with long red hair and yellowed horns with his blue-skinned oni bandits with snowy pine trees and snow covered houses.

Adventures with Yokai: The Fisherman’s Past

One day, a woodcutter was returning from the mountains after dusk. Eager to return home, he left the path to cut through the forest and went astray in the dim light.

As he neared the base of the mountain, an acrid coil of smoke drifted through the trees. With it came the alarmed voices of men and women, the cries of livestock, and a rumbling inhuman laughter that made the ground tremble.

He peered into the clearing and despaired.

Floating above the village was the monstrous head of Shuten Doji! It was as big as an oxcart. Its great inferno of shaggy crimson hair writhed around it in the sky.

The village was overrun with Oni…

The indigo-skinned giants were everywhere! With their yellowed horns and blood-stained teeth, they towered over the bodies of the men they had slain.

Villagers and livestock had been laden with bales of rice and casks of sake. They were being herded away into the mountains.

There was nothing he could do.

The woodcutter crept back into the cover of the trees, thankful that he had strayed from the path.

The woodcutter left the mountain and never returned. He moved to a small coastal village, gave up woodcutting, and became a fisherman.

✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ La Fin ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿

Thanks for reading! (^_^)
Jason and Antonietta

Picture of Jason & Antonietta (IndianWolf Studios)

Jason & Antonietta (IndianWolf Studios)

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