Tale 91 — The death of Torigozen who disturbed the mountain gods

Torigozen, who knew the mountains well, went out to gather mushrooms and came upon a red-faced man and woman talking in the shadow of a large rock. He struck at them playfully with his blade, and was kicked and fell senseless. He lay ill for about three days and died. When a mountain ascetic was consulted, he said it was punishment for having disturbed the play of the mountain gods, gods of the mountains.

Source: Yanagita Kunio, Tono Monogatari (1910) — Aozora Bunko (Japanese text)
Land: Tono
Setting: Tono, Iwate
Type: Gods and Belief, Death, Ghosts and Omens
Beings: mountain gods

This is an English rendering of our short Japanese summary of the source tale — a summary translated from the Japanese, not a translation of the original text. The summary was drafted and translated with AI assistance, and names and numbers were checked against our records.