Folktales Here follows a list of Japanese Folktales (昔話) currently on our website. There will be more over time, so please bear with us for the time being. Grateful Creature Motif The Bewitched Tea-Kettle (分福茶釜 or 文福茶釜) A grateful Tanuki performs for the man who saved him, making him very[...]
See also: List of Folktales Shōjōji no Tanuki Bayashi The Shōjōji no Tanuki Bayashi (狸囃子) is a Japanese Folktale which later became a children’s song. The story revolves around a pack of Tanuki holding wild nightly drum parties at the Shōjōji Temple.1 Footnotes 1. Yoda, H. and Alt, M. (2016)[...]
Tanuki The Tanuki (狸) (Racoon-Dog) is a type of Yōkai which is also a real-life animal. Folklore says it is a notorious trickster. Later portrayals of the Yōkai depict it with large testicles. Toriyama Sekien in his work, the Gazu Hyakki Yagyō, depicts the creature on hind legs, drumming its[...]