Bake-kujira

Bake-kujira ("ghost whale") is an entity appearing on the night sea as a giant whale of bone only, with no flesh, swimming through the water followed by countless fish and birds. Fishing villages of Izumo Province (coastal Matsue, Izumo, and Ota in Shimane) tell of its passage offshore as an omen: villages where it was seen suffered illness, poor catches, or bad weather in the following year. The whale is normally a messenger of the sea-deity and a sign of plenty; the skeletal Bake-kujira sits on the boundary between sacred and uncanny. Momoyama Jin's Ehon Hyaku Monogatari (Tenpo 12, 1841), with pictures by Takehara Shunsen, records "Bakekujira" with picture and omen-text as the fullest written source. Murakami Kenji's Nihon Yokai Daijiten (Kadokawa, 2005) and the International Research Center for Japanese Studies Yokai Folklore Database organize the tradition; coastal Shimane gazetteers preserve analogous tales.