Page:Things Japanese (1905).djvu/455

Rh fact, most popular of all supernatural beings—are the Tengu, a class of goblins or gnomes that haunt the mountains and woodlands, and play many pranks. They have an affinity to birds; for they are winged and beaked, sometimes clawed. But often the beak becomes a large and enormously long human nose, and the whole creature is conceived as human, nothing bird-like remaining but the fan of feathers with which it fans itself. It is often dressed in leaves, and wears on its head a tiny cap. Several fine temples are still dedicated to these goblins, that of Dōryō Sama near Miyanoshita being specially beautiful. Then there are the Sennin, or "mountain genii,"—men in shape, but immortal. They are stately, not grotesque and elfish like the other class just mentioned. The Shōjō are red-haired sea monsters, given to drinking enormous quantities of liquor. The "Three-eyed Friar" and the "Single-eyed Acolyte" (his single eye glares in mid-forehead) must be uncanny persons to meet in the gloaming, nor less so the "White Woman" who wanders about in the snow. The youth of Japan has a wholesome dread of these bogies, and also fears a variety of Oni—demons and ogres—of whom blood-curdling stories are told. They have horns, but no tail, and their sole article of clothing is a loin-cloth of tiger skin. One of them produces the thunder by tapping on a set of tambourines, and sometimes he falls to the ground and hurts himself. Japanese ghosts do not walk the earth wound in sheets, for the simple reason that sheets form no part of Japanese sleeping arrangements. But their legs dwindle into nothingness, while the body is drawn out to an alarming height, and they hold their hands in front of them in a grabbling attitude. Sometimes the neck is of frightful length (rokuro-kubi), and twisted like a snake.

Of mythic beasts, the most important by far is that noble creature the Dragon,—Chinese by origin, but thoroughly