Oiteke-bori (Saitama)

Oiteke-bori (literally "the leave-it-behind moat") is a voice-yokai of moats and ponds. When an angler tries to return home with caught fish, a voice from the water calls "oitekei, oitekei" (leave it behind). The figure is known as one of the Honjo Seven Wonders of Edo (Sumida, Tokyo), and cognate cases are recorded across the Kanto plain. If one ignores the voice and goes home, the fish are said to vanish from the basket, or strange things follow the angler to the house. The Honjo moats are the best-known setting, but cognate cases are recorded around Kawagoe and elsewhere in Saitama. Edo-period zuihitsu and the Honjo Seven Wonders oral tradition are the basic record; Okamoto Kido's Hanshichi Torimono-cho (Meiji-Taisho) drew on the type. Murakami Kenji's Nihon Yokai Daijiten (Kadokawa, 2005) treats the figure as an independent entry, and the Nichibunken Strange Phenomena and Yokai Folklore Database compiles cases. The voice is variously identified with the kappa or with a drowned ghost.