Tsurube-otoshi Legend

The tsurube-otoshi legend is a Kyoto mountain-night cycle in which an oni or yokai head drops from the branches of a great tree on a rope, like a well-bucket falling. Travelling under a large cedar or oak on the night roads of Mount Kurama and Mount Atago, one hears a voice from above - 'Shall I drop a bucket, or take and eat a person?' - and a hairy giant face comes down. A slow traveller is hauled into the tree and eaten. The figure is fixed in Toriyama Sekien's Konjaku Gazu Zoku-Hyakki (1779), which depicts tsurube-otoshi and tsurube-bi as a paired set, and the cycle was established as a leading Kyoto mountain yokai in Edo-period kaidan culture. The structure has three parts: passage at night under a great tree; voice and descent of the head; and either flight or capture and consumption. The figure participates in a yokai-isation of everyday objects, here the well-bucket, joining boundary forms such as tsurube-bi and tree-hanging spirits. The central setting is the Kurama and Atago areas of Kyoto and the Tanba mountain roads. Documentary sources include Konjaku Gazu Zoku-Hyakki (1779) and the Edo Kyoto kaidan collections Shokoku Hyaku Monogatari (1677) and Kokon Hyaku Monogatari Hyoban; the folklore volume of the Kyoto prefectural history records local variants.