GashadokuroThis grotesque yokai is a titanic animated skeleton fifteen times taller than a man. It is composed of the bones of people who died of starvation that have aggregated in to a huge canabalistic spirit. It is animated by the dead’s anger at their own horrid deaths. They stalk the night making a "gachi gachi" sound. If this monster catches a human it will bite their head off. The appearance of a Gashadokuro is fortold by a ringing in one’s ears.
In one story, a man from Bingo (the old name for an area in east Hiroshima) was out in the fields one night when he heard a strange voice complaining about a pain it its eye. In the morning, the man located the weather-beaten skull of a Gashadokuro, and was able to appease it by removing the bamboo shoots that had grown up through its eye socket and leaving a bowl of dried boiled rice as an offering.
The fudal lord Tokugawa Mitsukuni (1628-1701) supposedly battled a Gashadokuro summoned by a magician.
In a story from the 10th century a provincial worlord called Taira-no-Masakado led a coup against an outpost of the central government untill he was killed by his cousin Sadamori. He was dismembered and beheaded as a warning to others.
Taira-no-Masakado’s head carried on living. It leered and laughed and eventualy flew away. His daughter, outraged at the treatement of her father’s body, prayed at the ancient Kifune Shrine in Kyoto untill her outrage was given form in a in a monstrous skeleton.
* Dan Holdsworth very kindly offered to bring Sir Nicholas of Redfernshire down to Woolsery next week, but - as the more eagle eyed amongst you will know - Nick had to pull out because of the death of his mother earlier in the year. Dan therefore has room in his car if anyone wants a lift from the Midlands down to Devon for the WW.
