Vampires are well known in popular culture, through folklore, myths & legends. The modern vampire legend burst on to the scene and terrified its Victorian audience with Bram Stokers 1897 novel Dracula.
Vampires have continued to spark the imagination and terrify and thrill people through video games, television shows, and films.
What is not so well known are the vampires of Japan. The Rokurokubi and Nukekubi which are creepy and terrifying.
Rokurokubi
Rokurokubi translates as “long neck” “pulley neck” “potter’s wheel neck”
This yokai appear as normal people during the day, but at night when they are asleep, their neck stretches out, so the head can travel great distances away from its sleeping body.
The Rokurokubi are considered pranksters by scaring people, they especially enjoy terrifying drunks. They have been known to attack small animals to drink their blood, and oddly they seem to savor drinking lamp oil.
Origins of the Rokurokubi
Tales of the Rokurokubi seem to have started in the Edo period (1603-1868) tales were written about people’s necks stretching out away from their bodies, when they were asleep, in Buya Zokuda, Kanden Kohitsu, and Yaso Kidan.
The Rokurokubi were not born as long-necked vampires, they were normal women (nearly always women, I have only heard a few men mentioned in tales) which were cursed and transformed into a Rokurokubi.
A woman could become a Rokurokubi after committing a sin or being unfaithful to her husband. Also, this seems very unfair, but if her father, husband or other family member commits a sin, the curse will be placed on the woman. It is also said that the curse can be passed down from the woman to her daughter.
A theory is that the Rokurokubi came about because people misinterpreted the visual depictions of the Nukekubi (we will discuss them shortly) the original kind of Rokurokubi. The head separating from the body was seen as the soul wandering as the person sleeping.
In pictures/drawings, this was depicted as a string connecting the body to the head, and this was later misinterpreted as a very long neck, or so the theory goes.
Stories/Legends of the Rokurokubi
The Servant girl
A lord was puzzled when he found that the oil in his lamps was disappearing at an alarming rate.
He suspected a member of his household was up to no good, so one night he stayed up to try and catch the culprit in the act.
What he witnessed shocked him, one of his servant girls was asleep, but he noticed a strange mist forming around the head of the servant girl, then the head started to move away from her body on her elongated neck.
The lord released she was a Rokurokubi, the next morning he let her go from his service.
The servant girl went from job to job but was always sacked after only a short time.
The servant girl was confused, why this was happening to her, and she never did find out that she was a Rokurokubi.
The Rokurokubi Village
There was a tale about a village on Mount Yoshino (Nara prefecture), the villagers had ring-like bruises around their necks, and all of them wore scarves at all times to cover up their necks.
They were all suspected to be Rokurokubi, the ring-like bruises formed because of their nighttime activities.
The monk and the young lady
There is a tale in Jippensha Ikku’s book Kaishin, which tells the story of a monk called Kaishin from Enshu (Hamamatsu, Shizuoka prefecture) and a woman called Oyotsu who eloped together, unfortunately, Oyotsu became sick and it would have cost money to treat her, so the monk killed Oyotsu, and took the remaining money and continued on his way.
One day his travels took him to an inn, the innkeeper’s daughter was very attractive. That night the monk slept with the inn keeper’s daughter, during the night the woman’s neck stretched out and her face changed into that of Oyotsu.
Oyotsu, as you can imagine, didn’t take kindly about the monk murdering her and angrily berated him on his actions.
In complete shock the next morning, the monk told the innkeeper what had happened. The innkeeper confessed that he had murdered his wife for money, and had built his inn with it, as this was a great sin his daughter was transformed into a Rokurokubi.
Kaishin full of remorse re-entered the priesthood. He built a grave for Oyotsu, called the Rokurokubi no Tsuka (Rokurokubi Mound), where he prayed every day for Oyatsu’s soul.
The Nukekubi
Nukekubi translates as a removable neck.
The Nukekubi is Rokurokubi whose heads come off and float around. They were the first/original Rokurokubi, their presence and accounts go back hundreds of years before the Rokurokubi came on the scene.
Nukekubi is more violent than the Rokurokubi since their heads can completely detach from their body. They are not limited by an elongated neck, so they can travel great distances.
Nukekubi reportedly attacks humans and drink their blood like vampires. They can survive on animal blood, sometimes they are known to bite their victims to death. Unlike western vampires, Nukekubi and Rokurokubi can walk around during the day and live a relatively normal life, but by night they can’t control their true nature.
It is said that to kill a Nukekubi, you must move its body to where the head won’t be able to find its body. The Nukekubi needs to be whole by daylight to survive. However, many Nukekubi like Rokurakubi are unaware of their curse and their nighttime adventures, and therefore even with the dangers and possible deaths they can cause, friends and family find it difficult to kill someone they love.
As discussed previously the act of the head separating from the body can be seen as the soul wandering away from the body.
A cure for Nukekubi and Rokurokubi has long been sought after since it can be passed on to their daughters, but so far no cure has been found.
Stories and Legends
Chasing Nukekubi’s down the street
There are many stories about Nukekubi, in the Sorori Monogatari (1663), in the chapter, A Women’s Wild Thoughts Wandering Around (Onna no Monen Mayoiaruku koto) a man saw a Nukekubi, a women’s head floating along a street, so he chased the head with his sword drawn. The head entered a house, and people said that they heard a voice from inside “I had a scary dream. I was chased by a man with a sword. I ran away all the way back home, and I woke up”
In the province of Echizen (Fukui prefecture), there’s a story of a man who chases a Nukekubi all the way to her home.
When the women eventually discovered her curse, she was so ashamed she asked her husband for a divorce, she ritually cut off all her hair, and then committed suicide, believing it was better to die than to live as a vampire (Nukekubi).
The Samurai Monk and the Nukekubi
Around 500 years ago there was an experienced/skilled samurai called Isogai, in the service of Lord Kikuji of Kyushu, but when the clan/house of Kikuji fell, Isogai found himself without a master. This is the worst thing that could happen to a samurai.
Isogai cut off his hair, and became a traveling priest, taking the name of Kwairyo.
On his travels, he meets a woodcutter and was invited back to his house. When he entered the woodcutter’s house there were four people warming themselves by a fire, they all greeted him in a very respectful manner.
Kwairyo suspected by their respectful greeting and the way they spoke; these people were not ordinary country folk. Kwairyo found out the woodcutter had once been a high official in the service of a Daimyo (powerful Feudal Lord), but he had fallen from grace by drinking, womanizing, and in the end as a result of his actions brought his house down, and he had to leave in disgrace.
Kwairyo was shown to a small room with a bed already made, he stayed up late to read and pray. In the early hours he got up to get a drink of water, he pushed open the sliding screen doors to enter the main room.
What he saw by the light of a lantern were five bodies without heads. At first, Kwairyo thought the household had been murdered, but looking more closely he noticed no blood, and the necks didn’t seem to have been cut. He realized he was among Nukekubi, he knew to kill Nukekubi you had to hide their body, so he dragged the woodcutter’s body to the window, and threw the body out of the window.
He opened the door and went into the garden, he heard voices, so he slowly walked towards the voices.
The amazing site which he saw was five heads floating around talking to each other and eating worms and insects. He heard the woodcutter say that they wanted to feed on the monk, but while he was praying he was protected.
The head of a women went back to the house to check on the monk, a few minutes later she returned in a panic saying the monk wasn’t in the house and the body of the woodcutter was missing.
The woodcutter suddenly saw the monk behind a tree, all five heads screamed and moved quickly towards Kwairyo. Kwairyo’s samurai’s instincts took over he grabbed a big branch and stuck the heads with all his might again and again.
Four of the heads fled from the furious blows of the monk, but the woodcutters head continued the attack, since he had nothing to lose, since he didn’t know where his body was, so would die anyway.
The woodcutter managed to sink his teeth into Kwairyo’s left sleeve, Kwairyo grabbed the woodcutters top knot and hit the head with the branch over and over again. The head finally let out a moan and died.
The woodcutters head was still attached to Kwairyo’s left sleeve and with all his strength he couldn’t force open the jaws, with the head still dangling from his sleeve, he reentered the house to find that the heads had rejoined their bodies, their heads were bruised and bleeding, seeing the monk the four Nukekubi ran out of the house and into the woods.
Kwairyo collected his belongings and went on with his travels with a head still dangling from his left sleeve.
I think you will agree that was an amazing story.
Final thoughts
I hope you have enjoyed finding out about Japanese vampires – Rokokurokubi a Nukekubi as much as I have.
There are similarities to the western vampire lore, but I think the Japanese vampires are so much creepier and terrifying.
