A Child's Garden of Youkai

[flemmings]

31_days prompt for last Monday, actually. Better late than never etc


When I was very small, about three or so, my grandfather used to tell me stories about monsters. Later on I found out they were actually his professional short stories, just made simple so I could understand them. Before I ever met them in comic books-- or elsewhere-- I learned about all the classic spooks: the rokurokubi with their long snaky necks who peer over walls to spy on their neighbours, the nukekubi whose heads detach from their bodies and go flying about attacking people, Akanbei with his one drooping eye, and the hitodama, those eyes trailing fire that mark the spirits of the dead. Grandfather mentioned lots of mischievous household imps-- Makura-gaeshi who pulls your pillow out from under your head at night, and Amakiri who cuts open mosquito nets so you get bitten, and Sodehiki-kozo, the invisible little boy who catches your kimono sleeve. Some I found charming and odd and inexplicable, like Tofu-kouzo, a small boy who walks about carrying a block of tofu, or Ame-furikouzo, another little boy who plays outside in the rain, or Abura-akago, a baby who licks the oil out of oil-lamps.

But there were other, odder ones that made me feel nervous about being by myself in our house. Nando-baba is an old woman who hides under the floor in abandoned storerooms, Aka-teko a red hand that dangles out of a tree, Kosode-no-te a short-sleeved kimono with its own hands. Those were bad enough, but the one that really got to me was Mokumokuren, a swarm of eyes that appears on the fusuma of old buildings. The idea of that made me nearly sick to my stomach from terror.

Grandfather told me not to worry. The fusuma in our house have a dragon on them, he said. No eyes will appear if there's a dragon there to eat them.

Well, he was right about that, at least. We've had everything else in our house, but no eyes on the fusuma.

Comments

[i-am-zan.livejournal.com]

Aahhh so that is what they are! Thank you!

*filed away for future reference and re-reading* - no one tells them like grandparents do,

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but Wiki knows more (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_legendary_creatures_from_Japan) than most grandparents.

[xsmoonshine.livejournal.com]

Hee! Very cute.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

So is your icon. What's it from?

[xsmoonshine.livejournal.com]

It's art from the inside cover of the Tactics manga - every volume has a cute and odd-looking critter. I'll see about scanning them. This is the image the icon was cropped from.

[flo-nelja.livejournal.com]

I love this !
What is "fusuma" ? *sorry*

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Sliding doors between rooms. I think the first Grandfather story got translated? That's the one where his cousin dies because of Akama and at the end he paints a picture of a dragon on the fusuma and thereby gives that form to Aoarashi.

[flo-nelja.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I had forgotten this story. *feels very stupid*

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Not to worry. The stories are so complex that I regularly used to forget things in them until I'd read them three or four times each, and even now I'll think 'Where was that little detail mentioned...?'

[sho-sunaga.livejournal.com]

Oh that's wonderful! Thank you.
And 納戸婆is creepy but for me as a child the most scariest were the 口裂け女and トイレの花子さん! I truly believed in them and used to scare myself...

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Somehow I have トイレの花子さん confused with Moaning Myrtle, to the point where I can't remember what Hanako-san actually does.

[sho-sunaga.livejournal.com]

Oh god Hahahaha, Now I have two of them moaning in my mind...
花子さんbasically doesn't do anything but moan or come and kill you in the toiet depending on the version. I don't know if you have ever been to an older Japanese elementary school, but usually its creepy, cold, dark and quite. It does make you nervous especially after school when nobody is around.

[paleaswater.livejournal.com]

Oh, the upperclassmen always scared us tiny boppers with the stories of the green hand that reached out of the latrine while you're squatting. What is this with colored hands anyways?

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Scarier. Also unnatural. Pale white hands are bad enough, but *green*, coming out of a *toilet*... agh.

[paleaswater.livejournal.com]

Oh, red hand that dangles out trees and people with detachable heads that go flying about are horror stories I've heard when I was young too.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

The one that intrigues me is the horse's leg 'which dangles from trees and kicks passersby.'

[xsmoonshine.livejournal.com]

The Japanese seem to have an exceptional number of odd and strangely specific youkai.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

They're kind of simplistic and concrete at the same time. You wake up suddenly (from a dream of falling, say) and it's 'cause someone pulled your wooden pillow out from under your head. Every time I catch my stupid coat pocket on the door handle as I go through, it's 'cause the pocket-catching youkai grabbed hold of me. Big flaming eyes, heads that are nothing but mouths, things with loooong legs or looong necks-- a very simple way of conceiving a bogle.

Mind, certain of them have that ooogey feel that I require of a properly scary spirit. Nando-baba is properly yuck, and the things hanging out of trees; and even the little tofu-carrying boy might be kimoi if looked at a certain way. Like, *why* is he carrying a block of tofu around?

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

And the bodiless horse with tinklers around its neck that go "chan-chara, chan-chara". If you hear that sound outside when you're alone, don't turn around, just keep walking.

That impressed me deeply as a child when I read that.

[incandescens]

Heh. And the perfect title, too.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Not that I recall many things in the Iijima garden per se. Lotsa long-armed spooks chasing him down the corridors.

[rasetsunyo.livejournal.com]

This is quite delightful. I dunno -- really specific bogies like these have no effect on me, I get really spooked by those inchoate ghosties that leave my imagination to do 90% of the work.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Exactly. It'd be different if I ever met something with a single huge eye, no doubt, but I can't imagine ever doing it. That sort of earlier mindset- the one that gave us pixies and trolls over here- doesn't operate any more.

But I do have a horror of ghosts, and the ghost-like ones here creep me. They're the things born of dark rooms with little illumination where you aren't *sure* is that a disembodied hand creeping along or just a rat.