Sune-kosuri (Okayama)

Sune-kosuri is a small dog-form yokai said to fasten to the legs of walkers on rainy nights in the Bicchu district of Okayama (around Okayama and Kurashiki). The figure appears as a dog or a puppy, rubs its body against the shins, and hinders walking, but is said to do little real harm. The figure is told as a familiar yokai particular to rainy night fields. The canonical narrative tells of a walker on a paddy-path or a dark mountain road on a rainy night, against whose legs something fastens, rubbing the shins and making walking difficult. Kicks pass through, and a lamp held to the spot reveals nothing. In the locality the night is described as "a night when sune-kosuri appear," and the conjunction of rain and the touch of a dog is held in memory as a familiar yokai. Bicchu folklore materials, dialect and yokai-collection notes by Yanagita Kunio and other folklorists, and Murakami Kenji's Nihon Yokai Daijiten (Kadokawa, 2005) compile the figure as an independent entry. The Nichibunken Strange Phenomena and Yokai Folklore Database collects Bicchu cases. The figure is now widely known through comics and games; the present entry centres on the folklore-textual record. Adjacent leg-fastening yokai include the ashi-magari of Kagawa and the okuri-inu type at large, and the Okayama tradition consolidated the figure as the canine touch on a rainy night.