Ibaraki-doji

Ibaraki-doji is an oni who, in the late-medieval otogi-zoshi cycle, serves as the foremost of Shuten-doji's four lieutenants on Mount Oe. The defining episode places him at Rashomon (or alternately Ichijo-modoribashi) in Kyoto, where he disguises himself as a beautiful woman and attacks Watanabe-no-Tsuna, one of the Shitenno of Minamoto-no-Yorimitsu; Tsuna severs the demon's right arm with the sword Higekiri. In the following sequence, Ibaraki-doji disguises himself as Tsuna's foster-mother, enters his residence to retrieve the severed arm, and flies away through the roof. The Muromachi-period otogi-zoshi Shuten-doji and Rashomon, the Noh play Rashomon (attributed to Kanze Kojiro Nobumitsu), the nagauta and kabuki piece Ibaraki, and the Ibaraki-jinja tradition in Ibaraki City, Osaka, transmit the figure. Murakami Kenji's Nihon Yokai Daijiten (Kadokawa, 2005) and the Nichibunken Strange Phenomena and Yokai Folklore Database compile the variants, including the Echigo (Niigata) Minamiuonuma birth-origin tradition.