Shizuka-mochi (Tochigi)

Shizuka-mochi is a sound-yokai in which the sound of someone pounding rice cakes (mochi) is heard in the middle of the night around the house. Cognate cases are recorded in Tochigi and the Kanto plain, and Toriyama Sekien's Gazu Hyakki Yagyo includes related figures. The figure appears only as sound, without body; the sound is variously connected to the wealth or fortune of the household. The canonical narrative tells of hearing "pettari, pettari" of rice-cake pounding from near the house deep in the night; when one steps outside to check, no one is there. In some regions, the sound moving away signals the rise of the household, and the sound approaching the decline; in other regions the polarity is reversed. The figure has the character of an omen-and-fortune yokai in sound. Edo-period kaidan ehon including those of the Toriyama Sekien lineage record cognate cases; Yanagita Kunio's sound-yokai studies and Murakami Kenji's Nihon Yokai Daijiten (Kadokawa, 2005) systematize the cases. The Nichibunken Strange Phenomena and Yokai Folklore Database collects Tochigi cases. Adjacent sound-yokai include yanari and azuki-arai; the connection to the household sound of mochi-tsuki is the distinctive trait. Regional variant names include "yoru-mochi-tsuki" and "yami-mochi."