ROKUROKUBI - WORLD OF WITCHCRAFT & WIZARDRY
$2.99 ROKUROKUBI - WORLD OF WITCHCRAFT & WIZARDRY
Published 2022-12-06T12:55:27+00:00
Join my Tribe and get every month model to your collection. JOIN NOW!!!
Rokurokubi (轆轤首, Rokurokubi) is a type of Japanese yōkai. They often appear in classical kaidan and essays, and they are often the subject of yōkai depictions, but it has also been pointed out that they may have simply been created as a pastime for inventing supernatural stories.
Description
Tales of "when people sleep, their necks would stretch" started appearing in the Edo period and afterwards, in literature such as "Buya Zokuda" (武野俗談), "Kanden Kōhitsu" (閑田耕筆』), "Yasō Kidan" (夜窓鬼談), etc.
This type of rokurokubi comes from legends that say that the rokurokubi (nukekubi) have a spiritual string-like object connecting the head to the torso, and it can be said that this type originates from people mistaking the string (depicted in works by people like Sekien) for an elongated neck.
In the "Kasshi Yawa" (甲子夜話), there is the following tale. A certain female student was suspected to be a rokurokubi, and when this servant's master went to check on her when she was sleeping, something like steam gradually rose from her chest, and when it became quite thick, her head would disappear, and right before one's eyes, her appearance turned into one with her neck risen up and stretched. Perhaps because she noticed the presence of her surprised master, when the female servant turned over in bed, her neck returned to normal. This female servant was ordinary and other than the fact that she had a pale face, she was no different from an ordinary human, but her master dismissed her. She was always fired wherever she went, and thus had no luck with finding places of employment. This "Kasshi Yawa" and the aforementioned "Hokusō Sadan" where the souls that leave the body would create the shape of a neck, has sometimes been interpreted as a type of "ectoplasm" in psychic research.
Date published | 06/12/2022 |
Price | $2.99 |