In the closing years of the Heian period, at the place where the emperor (Emperor Konoe) lived, the Seiryō-den, there appeared a cloud of black smoke along with an eerie resounding crying voice, making Emperor Nijō quite afraid. Subsequently, the emperor fell into illness, and neither medicine nor prayers had any effect. A close associate remembered Minamoto no Yoshiie using an arrow to put a stop to the mystery case of some bird’s cry, and he gave the order to a master of arrows, Minamoto no Yorimasa, to slay the monster. One night, Yorimasa went out to slay the monster with his servant Ino Hayata, and an arrow made from an arrowhead he had inherited from his ancestor Minamoto no Yorimitsu and the tailfeathers of a mountain bird. An uncanny black smoke started to cover the Seiryō-den. Yorimasa shot his arrow into it, there was a shriek, and a nue fell down around the northern parts of Nijō Castle. Instantly Ino Hayata seized it and finished it off. In the skies above the imperial court, two or three cries of the common cuckoo could be heard, and it is thus said that peace had returned. After this, the emperor’s health instantly recovered, and Yorimasa was given the sword Shishiō as a reward.
Appearance List Heike Monogatari (c. 13th century; written form c. 1330), Gempei Seisuiki (c. 14th century), Taiheiki (mid-14th century), Otogi Zōshi: Yorimasa and the Nue (Muromachi period, 14th–16th centuries), Nue (Noh, c. 15th century), Nue Monogatari (Kabuki, Edo period, 18th–19th centuries), Hyakki Yagyō Emaki (16th century), Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki (1779, Vol. 3) by Toriyama Sekien, Settsu Meisho Zue (1796–1798) by Akisato Ritō with illustrations by Takehara Shunchōsai, One Hundred Aspects of the Moon: The Nue (1887) by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi
Sample Read Tale of the Heike (Heike monogatari) [Internet Archive]
Description In the closing years of the Heian period, at the place where the emperor (Emperor Konoe) lived, the Seiryō-den, there appeared a cloud of black smoke along with an eerie resounding crying voice, making Emperor Nijō quite afraid. Subsequently, the emperor fell into illness, and neither medicine nor prayers had any effect. A close associate remembered Minamoto no Yoshiie using an arrow to put a stop to the mystery case of some bird’s cry, and he gave the order to a master of arrows, Minamoto no Yorimasa, to slay the monster. One night, Yorimasa went out to slay the monster with his servant Ino Hayata, and an arrow made from an arrowhead he had inherited from his ancestor Minamoto no Yorimitsu and the tailfeathers of a mountain bird. An uncanny black smoke started to cover the Seiryō-den. Yorimasa shot his arrow into it, there was a shriek, and a nue fell down around the northern parts of Nijō Castle. Instantly Ino Hayata seized it and finished it off. In the skies above the imperial court, two or three cries of the common cuckoo could be heard, and it is thus said that peace had returned. After this, the emperor’s health instantly recovered, and Yorimasa was given the sword Shishiō as a reward.
