Legendary Spirits of Japan

The scrolls of the spirit summoners hold tales of Japan's most dangerous, supernatural foes. As part of 'Kuma' Kengo Oyama's teachings, he was well versed in these legends, shared below...

Tamamo No Mae

Shape-shifters and supernatural tricksters are found in almost every ancient culture on Earth, and the folklore of Japan hosts several varieties--the Tanuki (racoon dogs) and the kitsune (foxes). Kitsune can be benevolent or malicious depending on their whims, and can transform into humans. Truly powerful kitsune are said to be over 900 years old, with each 100 years bestowing them a new tail. Therefore, the nine-tailed kitsune are revered as godly among the shapeshifters. 

Perhaps the most infamous of all kitsune, is the cunning and beautiful Tamamo No Mae. Like many spirits of renown, her origins lay outside Japan, and it may be more accurate to call Tamamo No Mae a huli jing, the Chinese equivalent of a kitsune. Her notoriety was first documented by court scholars in 1044 BC, during the last days of China's Shang dynasty, whe she possessed Emperor Zhou's head concubine, Daji. She beguiled the Emperor and influenced his cruelty, which fomented a rebellion that brought the dynasty to ruin. Though the Empire was lost, she was thwarted by a fellow concubine (and possible female lover) of Daji, who tricked her into drinking a potion brewed by alchemists. 

Tamamo-No-Mae was exorcised, but her spirit remained. She next appeared some 500 years later, in India, where she once again took over the consort of a king and inspired him to slaughter thousands of his own men in a mass-beheading. Priests--supposedly of the Fire Temple--were able to exorcise her once more, whereupon she crossed the seas and arrived at the court of Japanese Emperor Toba, around the year 1119 AD. 

It is here she took on the name Tamamo-No-Mae (her true name lost to the ages). Attracted by her beauty and wisdom, the Emperor fell in love with her and made her his head consort. She caused him to fall ill, though no other calamities were attributed to her. The celebrated exorcist and spirit summoner, Abe no Yasuchika, was called in to examine the Emperor's sudden illness, and discovered Tamamo-No-Mae's secret upon seeing her nine-tailed silhouette cast on a paper screen. Though he banished her, it wasn't until the mages Kazusa-no-suke and Miura-no-suke sealed her in the Sessho-seki ('killing stone'), in the mountains of Nasu, that her reign of terror finally came to an end.

Shuten Doji

The fearsome 'King of Oni', ogre-like demons able to take various forms and guises and exert control over their elements. Llike humans, it is believed that they can express glyphs. Shuten Doji lived atop Mr. Oe, near Kyoto, the historic capital of Japan before Edo/Tokyo. His presence was well-known and the the mountain avoided. Supposedly, treaties between him and a previous Emperor had been made in the past.

However, around the rule of Empror Icihjio (in the year 994) those treaties were broken. A slew of disappearances, mostly of young women, plagued the capital. The ancestor of Abe no Yasuchika, Abe no Seimei, divined that Shuten Doji was to blame. The Emperor summoned the warrior, Minamoto Raiko and his band of demon slayers to infiltrate Mt. Oe's 'Iron Fortress', the lair of Shuten Doji.

Minamoto and his men encountered many challenges and trials on the way to the mountain, but eventually rescued a slave to the oni who reported to the slayers that the captives were forced to work as servants for the ogre king, and killed and devoured at will. The heroes disguised themselves as priests (for Shuten Doji was a follower of the old gods) and convinced the ogre king to hold a banquet. They plied the ogre king with sake (a favorite of oni) infused with an elixir given to them by Abe no Seimei, as dictated to him by the gods. They were able to cut off Shuten Doji's head while he slept in a drunken stupor, though the head itself was re-animated and attacked the party. The heroes were able to free the captives, and the sword that fell the ogre king was imbued with his blood, turning it into the legendary blade Dōjigiri Yasutsuna. In some telling of the tell, Shuten Doji commands four oni subordinates, who are all dealt with in their own way.

Lightning Drinker and Thunder Caller

Obscure in most annals of lore, save for the customs of the spirit summoners, is the tale of the Lightning Drinker, an oni warrior. This oni, whose true name was stolen and hidden by the exorcists who sealed him, was thought to be a possible subordinate of Shoten Doji.

Illustration by @owariya_ranko

In the last years of the Heian era, a pair of oni, Lightning Drinker and Thunder Caller, plagued the capital with an endless barrage of storms. All warriors who attempted to subdue the oni were dispatched by their brutality. A cunning sumo wrestler instead challenged the oni to a fight, with the winner being allowed unlimited access to the imperial sake reserves. The two oni accepted the challenge, eager to prove their might. The sumo, however, was also a spirit summoner, who called upon the thunder god Take Mikazuchi (also the progenitor of sumo wrestling) to lend him power. He was able to best the two oni in combat. The Thunder Caller was unimpressed. The Lightning Drinker, however, fell in love with the sumo for his might and good looks. In turn, the sumo loved him back in secret. Despite the human's victory, he granted Lightning Drinker the gift of the sake reserves, much to the Emperor's dismay.

Lightning Drinker taught the unnamed summoner the art of magick and combat, and the two fell in love. Angered by his companion's betrayal, and for fraternizing with a human, Thunder Caller attacked the city and was destroyed by the magickal interventions of Abe no Tadeyuki, a descendent of Abe no Seimei. The Emperor, upon discovering the tryst between oni and mortal, ordered Lightning Drinker destroyed and had the summoner banished. It is believed, in some accounts, that the unnamed sumo ended up marrying the daughter of Abe no Tadeyuki, and siring the line of spirit summoners who dwell in the mountains of Wakayama prefecture (including clans Ikari and Oyama).

Abe no Tadeyuki was, of course, tasked with dispatching Lightning Drinker as well. Yet, perhaps due to his own ancestor falling in love with a kitsune, the exorcist took pity on the oni and sealed him--with wind magick--in the Sea of Trees, appointing him guardian of the divine wellspring hidden at the base of Mt. Fuji.

Tadeyuki and his descendants would go on to found some of the spirit summoner conclaves in the misty hills of Wakayama, after the Emperor declared spirit summoners an 'untouchable' caste. It was later discovered that the Emperor at the time may have been influenced by supernatural creatures looking to use human politics to their favor.