T2 — Mountain Folk and Strangers
People of the mountains who are not quite people, and strangers who come from outside the village.
- Strange Fates
- Shape-Shifting Animals
- Yokai and the Uncanny
- Gods and Belief
- Death, Ghosts and Omens
- Taboos and Customs
- How Places Got Their Names
- Mountain Folk and Strangers
- Spirited Away, Other Worlds
- Origins of Plants and Animals
Tono17 tales
- Tale 3The black-haired woman of the mountains and the yama-otokoThe hunter Sasaki Kahei encountered a woman with long black hair in the mountains and shot her down with his gun. As proof, he cut off her hair and…
- Tale 4A woman with a child crossing a bamboo-grass fieldAs Kichibei of Yamaguchi village was cutting bamboo grass on Mount Nekkodachi, a beautiful woman carrying a child on her back came walking across the…
- Tale 5Yama-otoko and yama-onna appear at Fuefuki PassFuefuki Pass, which had been a shortcut toward the coast, came to be feared by people after rumors spread that one might meet a yama-otoko, a man of…
- Tale 6The choja's daughter becomes the wife of a yama-otokoThe daughter of a choja, a very rich man, of Nukanomae in Aozasa village was taken and hidden away by something, and was long missing, but a hunter…
- Tale 7The daughter met again in Mount GoyoA daughter of Kamigo village went out to gather chestnuts and disappeared, and her family even held a funeral for her, but several years later a…
- Tale 29The tengu and gold of Mount KeitoTo Mount Keito, where a tengu, a long-nosed mountain spirit, was said to live and which even those on pilgrimage to Hayachine avoided, a man known as…
- Tale 30A big man sleeps at HayachineA man from Oguni village went to Hayachine to cut bamboo, and found a big man lying on his back in a thicket of dwarf bamboo, asleep and snoring…
- Tale 31Children carried off by ijinAmong the children of households in Tono, every year there were many who were carried off by ijin, a stranger from outside the village, and went…
- Tale 49Record of strange happenings at SennindoHalfway up Sennin Pass stood Sennindo, a hall enshrining a mountain hermit, and travelers kept the custom of writing down the strange things they met…
- Tale 62The red-robed apparition in the mountainsA hunter, meaning to spend the night in the mountains, encircled a great tree with a protective rope and slept. A large being in the form of a monk…
- Tale 90The big man of Tengumori and a young man's gruesome deathIn a field at the foot of Tengumori, a young man who was about to doze off saw a big man with a very red face appear before him. The young man, fond…
- Tale 92Children meet a yama-otoko at HayachineChildren from Tsuchibuchi village who had gone to play at Hayachine passed a tall, dark-skinned man with shining eyes while coming down the mountain…
- Tale 93The ijin who told of a child's death at the passKikuchi Kikuzo was crossing Fuefuki Pass to fetch his wife, so she could look after their sick child, when on a dim mountain road a man with a red…
- Tale 102The red-faced giant of the Little New YearOn the night of the Little New Year, it was said that the mountain gods came out to play, and children were warned against going outside. A girl…
- Tale 107The art of divination from the mountain godsA daughter of a house in Kamigo village received leaves from an unknown tall man on the riverbed of the Hayase River, and from that day she gained…
- Tale 108The fortune teller possessed by the mountain godsThere were people in various places who told fortunes when the mountain gods, gods of the mountains, entered into them, and the woodcutter of…
- Tale 115Folktales and the tale of yamahahaThis was prefaced by saying that in Tono, folktales were called mukashi-mukashi, long-ago tales, and that among them, tales of yamahaha, an old woman…