RICHARD FREEMAN: STRANGE TALES OF JAPANESE OCTOPI

Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai painted the picture Dream of a Fisherman’s Wife in 1820. The picture depicts a beautiful Japanese woman being sexually ravaged by a giant octopus. It may seem strange to westerners, but it is not an unusual image for Japanese culture, because somehow octopi have a hold on the Japanese imagination.

Several monster octopi turn up in their legends

Akkorokamui

In the legends of the Ainu people, the original inhabitants of Japan, this was a monster resembling a giant octopus or fish. It lurked in Funka Bay and adjacent waters off southwestern Hokkaido.

The 19th century Englishman and missionary John Batchelor, who lived among the Ainu , wrote firsthand a journal entry of an alleged actual incident concerning an apparent Akkorokamui in his book The Ainu and their Folklore.

In the morning, we found the whole village under a cloud. Three men, it was said, were out trying to catch swordfish, when all at once a great sea monster, with large staring eyes, appeared in front of them and proceeded to attack the boat. A desperate fight ensued. The monster was round in shape, and emitted a dark fluid and noxious odor. The three men fled in dismay, not so much indeed for fear, they say, but on account of the dreadful smell. However that may have been, they were so scared that the next morning all three refused to get up and eat; they were lying in their beds pale and trembling.

Another old 19th century account was made by a Japanese fisherman and was translated by cryptozoologist Brent Swancer.

And I saw ahead something huge and red undulating under the waves. I at first thought my eyes deceived me and that I was merely seeing the reflection of sun upon the water, but as I approached, I could see that in fact it was an enormous monster, 80 meters in length at least, with large, thick tentacles as big around as a man’s torso. The thing fixed me with a huge, staring eye before sinking out of sight into the depths.

Thomas Beal, a surgeon on a British Whaling ship, described being attacked by a huge octopus whilst on the Bonin Islands off southern Japan in 1835. He was rescued by his shipmates.

Another Englishman, Arthur Grimbal was also attacked but saved by his colleagues.

The Pacific octopus may reach 7 meters across the tentacle span but it does not seem large or aggressive enough to account for these sightings. Could we be dealing with a huge, unknown species?

Nurarihyon

In early legends from Okayama prefecture, Nurarihyon (whose name means slippery and strange) was an aquatic yokai from the Seto Inland Sea. He was said to look like a giant octopus or jellyfish and dived beneath the surface if humans came too close.

By the Edo period Nurarihyon had radically changed. He was then supposed to be the supreme commander of the yokai. For all this he is an unassuming, harmless and rather pleasant fellow. He resembled a green skinned man with an enlarged head shaped somewhat like a cabbage. In the evenings he entered people’s housed and drank their tea and smoked their tobacco. His manner is so confident he was never questioned.

Tako no nana ashi

An octopus with seven legs. These odd tentacled cephelopods haunted the seashore of Chubu District in the Edo period. They crawled up onto land to dig into graves and feast on rotting flesh.

Tako-ningyou

A human headed octopus captured by fishermen during the Meiji period. Make you wonder whether H P Lovecraft read old Japanese texts.

Oklahoma Octopus

I have always been particularly interested in the concept of the freshwater octopus - an unknown cephalopod reported from lakes in Oklahoma and surrounding areas of North America. Whilst the stories seem to be apocryphal, some seem to have a germ of truth. According to accepted wisdom freshwater octopuses are a complete impossibility, because cephalopods cannot live in freshwater. But scienetists have been wrong before...

One specimen found dead in a North American lake a few years ago proved to be a marine species Octopus burryi that had been dumped. Mark A Hall apparently suggested that these things could be eurypterids - an extinct group of arthropods related to arachnids, which include the largest known arthropods that ever lived. They were formidable predators that thrived in warm shallow water in the Ordovician to Permian from 460 to 248 million years ago. However, I have not read his argument, and on the surface this would seem to be highly unlikely.

Another suggestion is that they are freshwater jellyfish. There is indeed a species of freshwater jellyfish - Craspedacusta sowerbyi which appears to have an almost global distribution. It has been found in countries on almost every continent including parts of Yorkshire, London and nearly every state in America.

The medusa appearance is sporadic and unpredictable from year to year. It is not uncommon for C. sowerbyi to appear in a body of water where they had never been documented before, in very large numbers, and they may be even reported on the local news. In parts of the mid-west and the great lakes area of North America, seeing one is considered to be a sign of good luck.

The trouble is that it is only the size of a 5p peice. I, however, have been fascinated by the species ever since first reading about it in my childhood bible of Natural History The Hong Kong Countryside by G.A.K Herklots. I want to exhibit some one day in the CFZA museum.

Could there be a larger species, analogous to the larger jellyfish of the oceans? It seems unlikely, but still the stories of freshwater octopi continue.

We were recently sent this video which purports to show two nubile young women being attacked by one of these cryptic cephalopods. I think that it is dubious in the extreme, but include it for its entertainment value..