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The name Kuraokami combines kura 闇 "dark; darkness; closed" and okami 龗 "dragon tutelary of water". This uncommon kanji (o)kami or rei 龗, borrowed from the Chinese character ling 龗 "rain-dragon; mysterious" (written with the "rain" radical 雨, 3 口 "mouths", and a phonetic of long 龍 "dragon") is a variant Chinese character for Japanese rei < Chinese ling 靈 "rain-prayer ...
The Japanese version of fairies, and the term for spirits from Western legends. Yosuzume A mysterious bird yōkai that sings at night, sometimes indicating that the okuri-inu is near. Yuki-onna A malevolent spirit that manifests as a beautiful woman wandering snowy mountain passes. Yume no seirei A wizened, emaciated old man yōkai that causes ...
The name ma (魔 – devil) suggests that they are meant to threaten human existence or defy the gods, while -zoku (族 – tribe, clan, family) indicates that they are a family. [ 3 ] Maō ( 魔王 ) is a term derived from mazoku, suggesting a king ( 王 Ō – king, ruler) that rules the mazoku.
Umibōzu (海坊主, "sea priest") is a giant, black, human-like being and is the figure of a yōkai from Japanese folklore. Other names include Umihōshi (海法師, "sea priest") or Uminyūdō (海入道, "sea priest"). Little is known of the origin of umibōzu but it is a mythical sea-spirit creature and as such has multiple sightings ...
Like many monsters of Japanese folklore, malicious yūrei are repelled by ofuda (御札), holy Shinto writings containing the name of a kami. The ofuda must generally be placed on the yūrei ' s forehead to banish the spirit, although they can be attached to a house's entry ways to prevent the yūrei from entering.
Yume no seirei ゆめのせいれい from Bakemono no e (化物之繪, c. 1700), Harry F. Bruning Collection of Japanese Books and Manuscripts, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University. Yume no seirei (夢の精霊, “dream spirit”), is a mysterious yōkai in Japanese mythology believed to cause ...
While other cultures have parallels to kotodama, such as mantra, yanling, mana, and logos, some Japanese people believe the "word spirit" is unique to the Japanese language. One of the classical names of Japan is kototama no sakiwau kuni ( 言霊の幸わう国 , "the land where the mysterious workings of language bring bliss") , [ 3 ] [ ISBN ...
In the Sui dynasty, the words 猫鬼 and 金花猫 described mysterious cats. In Japanese literature, the nekomata first appeared in the Meigetsuki by Fujiwara no Teika in the early Kamakura period: in the beginning of Tenpuku (1233), August 2, in Nanto (now Nara Prefecture), a nekomata (猫胯) was said to have killed and eaten several people ...