Echigo Mujina Legend

The Echigo mujina tradition collects folk tales centered on Shimoetchu, Niigata, in which the mujina (an old name for the badger) bewilders people. On night roads the entity appears as a woman, a priest, or a stranger and asks for directions or to borrow a lantern; when the traveler turns to look, the figure has returned to its mujina form and disappeared, or the traveler thinks he has been seen safely home but wakes the next morning thrown into a mountain. The figure stands beside the fox (kitsune) and tanuki traditions, telling the boundary between mountain and village in snow-country Echigo. The skeleton has three stages: meeting on a night road and the figure's humanlike form, the bewilderment through conversation or company, and the dispelling at dawn or by chanting the nenbutsu. Rather than showy patterns like the fox wedding or the tanuki's drum-belly, the Echigo mujina is grounded in everyday life. Sado has its own mujina tradition distinct from the mainland. Yanagita Kunio's Tono Monogatari Shui and Yokai Dangi and the Niigata Prefectural Board of Education's Niigata Kenshi Minzoku-hen carry related tales; Edo-period local picture-scrolls and essays also note the bewilderment.