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Fairy Tales Fairies Faery Woodlands Magazine Blog About
Japanese fairy tales
Tengu
The tengu can appear as a humanoid creature with the head, tail, and
wings of a bird or as a red skinned humanoid with a giant nose instead
of a beak and no real bird like features. The tengu are very much
related to birds, not only in their depiction but in many other aspects
of their life. They hatch from large eggs, are often depicted as
perching in trees, and make their homes in trees as well.
As with many such creatures they are internally dualistic, seeking at
times to eat people who don’t necessarily appear to be guilty of
anything. They also often seem to take great delight in spreading
chaos. In some fairy tales tengu punish the pious yet in others they
punish the vain. The tengu themselves hated vanity yet their long nose
was in Japan a symbol of vanity and conceited people where historically
referred to as becoming tengu as a form of slang. They will lead
humans astray with their magic by causing the humans to go mad so that
they end up wondering the wilderness forever.
The Buddhists often depicted tengu as being a form of unholy spirit
which would carry off monks or possess women in order to seduce and
corrupt monks. The tengu in this role would also act the part of devil
getting people to worship them in return for certain profane powers or
vanities.
Tengu are often depicted as being similar to wilderness monks and were
said to have trained many ninjas and samurai. They were depicted in
some legends as protectors of the forests from woodcutters and those
who damage the vegetation. And as with many wilderness protectors tengu
were often worshipped as a form of kami. Offerings were made to the
tengu before trees in many forests could be cut. The tengu of Saburo is
worshiped on the mountain and the tengu is one of the primary deaties
in Izuna Shugen where he is depicted as being surrounded by fire and
riding a black fox.
They also carry a number of magical items which humans have gotten a
hold of. In one story the tengu’s fan was able to cause a persons
nose to grow or shrink. In another the tengu’s fan cause the
wind. There is also a tale of a boy who tricks a tengu who into giving
him a straw cloak which makes him invisible by pretending to have a
magical bamboo pole which allows him to see distant objects.
In another tale a tengu touches a man with twig like wand causing him to burst into flames.
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