page_title: Ushi-oni
section_title: Classical Literature
hierarchical_section_title: Ushi-oni / Classical Literature
caption_attribution_description: English: Nadeuchi in Ushijima_shirine (Mukōjima, Sumida, Tokyo, Japan) 日本語: 牛島神社の撫で牛 (東京都墨田区向島)
context_page_description: The Ushi-Oni, or gyūki, is a yōkai from the folklore of western Japan. The folklore describes more than one kind of ushi-oni, but the depiction of a bovine-headed monster occurs in most. Ushi-oni generally appear on beaches and attack people who walk there.
context_section_description: Folk tales about ushi-oni are told about in western Japan, but in classical literature, there are many statements about a yōkai similar to the ushi-oni appearing around Asakusa.
  In writings such as the Azuma Kagami from the Kamakura Period, there is the following legend. In Kenchō 3 (1251), an ox-like yōkai appeared at Sensō-ji, and the 24 monks in the dining room was affected by its evil intent and fell ill, 7 of whom died. The Shinpen Musashi Fudoki Kō quotes from the Azuma Kagami and states that an ushi-oni-like yōkai appears at Sumida River, who jumped at the Ushijima Shrine opposite the river from Asakusa, and left behind an orb called the "ushi-tama," or "ox orb." This ushi-tama became a shrine treasure, and the ushi-oni was deified as a god, and at this shrine, instead of komainu (guardian dogs), it instead is decorated with a pair of komaushi (guardian oxen). It also has a nadeushi (petting ox) statue, and it is thought that by petting it on an area where one's own self is not well, the illness can be cured. Considering how "Gozu-Tennō" (ox-head king of skies) is sometimes thought to be another name for Susanoo, and Susanoo's harsh personality, there is the theory that this ushi-oni is an incarnation of Susanoo, and the yōkai researcher Kenji Murakami states that Ushi Gozen's attack on the temple comes from a backdrop of a religious confrontation.
  Their name is mentioned in The Pillow Book under the name of "Oroshiki Mono" ("Fearful Thing") in section 148, and their face-off with Minamoto no Yorimitsu is also depicted in the Taiheiki.
  In the beginning of the Edo Period, according to an old jōruri called "Ushi Gozen no Ohonchi" (Ushi Gozen's Original Place), the wife of Minamoto no Mitsunaka, from a powerful family of the Heian period, had a dream where the Kitano Tenjin dwelt in her womb, and after a long pregnancy of 3 years and 3 months, a boy infant was born on an ox year, on an ox day, at the ox hour. This infant would be Minamoto no Yorimitsu's next younger sibling (in the original text, らいくわうの御しやてい "raikwau no oshatei," or ただの満中が次男, "tada no Mitsunaka ga jinan"), but he had an ox's horns and an oni's face, so he was about to be killed. However, the court lady who was ordered to perform the killing instead saved him and raised him in secret in the mountains, and grew up to be called "Ushi Gozen." Mitsunaka ordered his son, the yōkai slaying hero Minamoto no Yorimitsu to deal with Ushi Gozen. Ushi Gozen fought many battles in Kantō and resisted to the end, and he threw himself in the Sumida River, where it is said that he transformed into an ox 30 meters (about ten jō) in length and went berserk.
caption: Nadeushi at the Ushijima Jinja in Sumida, Tokyo
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