It’s
one of the oldest yokai recorded. It appears in Kojiki ( 712 CE), in the Heian
period encyclopedia Wamyo Ruijusho ( 938 CE) and in the Heike Monogatari ( 1371
CE). It is depicted with the head of monkey, the body of a tanuki, the tail of
a snake and the limbs of a tiger. It’s called the Japanese chimera. In ancient
times, people believe it was a sort of nocturnal bird and it’s call was really
eerie resembling the call of a white’s thrush. Its name contains the kanji of “
night” and the kanji of “ bird”. Little is known about this monster but in
general it has been considered an evil spirit. Its arrival is announced by a
terrible eerie cry and a cloud of black smoke. In ancient time it’s told it
brought illness, misfortune and disease. One famous nue attack occurred in the
summer of 1153 in Kyoto. Emperor Konoe had nightmares every night and grew ill
and this illness was attributed to some evil spirit. These events lasted until
days later, when a storm appeared over the imperial palace at 2 a.m. Lightning
struck the roof that caught fire. To deal with the evil spirit was called
samurai Minamoto no Yorimasa. During the night he started to see a huge black
cloud in the sky above the palace so he fired an arrow into the clouds and out
of the sky came a terrible scream and a nue dropped to earth. The emperor
recovered from his illness. Since the people of Kyoto were afraid of a curse
for killing the nue, they loaded up its corpse in a ship and sent it down the
Kamo river. The nue’s corpse washed up on the shore near the village of Ashira
where the good citizens built a burial mound named Nuezuka.
Source: Matthew Meyer -
The Hour of Meeting Evil Spirits
