Nue

Nue is a composite-bodied entity described as having the head of a monkey, the body of a tanuki, the limbs of a tiger, and the tail of a snake. In older sources, including the Man'yoshu and Kojiki (712 CE), "Nue" was an alternate name for the night-singing tora-tsugumi bird; the composite form was fixed from Heike Monogatari onward. In Heike Monogatari, scroll four "Nue," set in the reign of Emperor Konoe (ca. 1151), a black cloud over the Shishinden caused the emperor's illness, and Minamoto no Yorimasa with his retainer Ino Hayata shot the creature down. The story passed into the Noh play Nue and into Toriyama Sekien's Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki (1779). The corpse was sent down the Uji River; an Ashiya "Nue mound" and a "Nue Pond" at Nijo Park in Kyoto preserve the tradition.