Fairy Tale Stories      Children's Fairy Tales      Fairies       Faery Woodlands Magazine      Blog     About

Japanese fairy tales The Yokai Once a long time ago there was an village with an old temple which was haunted by a yokai. People were afraid to approach the temple for they could hear its steps creaking and the harsh laugh of the creature inside. The villagers gathered in the house of the elders and began to think of how they might tame the yokai but they couldn’t think of what to do or who to send. As they pondered a medicine merchant named Tasuke came to the village. Being young and reckless he wasn’t afraid of anything. But the question was could anyone cope with the yokai. Tasuke shrugged when the question was put before him and agreed casually to help. So it was decided that he would go to the temple that night. Now autumn nights are especially quite so there wasn’t a sound as he entered the temple. Tasuke sat down inside the old building but it wasn’t long before he grew bored and started to yawn loudly. The sound of his yawn was so loud that it echoed and echoed down the street for a while. Finally when everything was quite once more Tasuke saw the yokai standing before him with a large grin. “Who are you? A Daredevil or have you actually come to see me?” the yokai asked the young man. Still sleepy Tasuke yawned once more at the dumb struck werewolf. “So you’re not afraid,” the yokai asked with surprise. “What’s fear,” Tasuke responded. “All the people in the world are afraid of something,” the yokai chuckled darkly. “And now I’m going to be what you fear.” “Get way from me,” Tasuke growled angrily at the yokai. “Come now, I’m an expert in fear and you must be afraid of something,” the yokai snarled and I’m a yokai  so you should be afraid of me,” the yokai laughed proudly. “Well, the one thing that does give me Goosebumps is gold,” Tasuke told the yokai. “Well, well,” the yokai grinned at having learned this secret. “The truth is that’s not such a strange fear, to be honest I’m afraid of cooked egg plant because its stench drives me crazy.” The yokai glanced out the window as he finished speaking and noticed that it was starting to get light so he promised to scare Tasuke the next night. The next night Tasuke went back to the temple with a big tub filled with cooked eggplant sealed with a tight lid. At midnight the yokai came along. “Get ready for tonight I’m going to scare,” you the yokai told the boy as he pulled out a bag full of gold coins and threw it at Tasuke. “So are you scared?” Tasuke went running around the temple acting horrified at the sight of the gold and causing the yokai to laugh with delight. Tasuke ran up to his tub of eggplant and opened it causing the hot stem to pour out and fill the temple with the smell of cooked eggplant. The yokai began twitching all over before he threw himself head long out of the temple. It ran out into the garden and grabbed a tree but before he could get away he turned into a mushroom. The villagers then rejoiced that they had finally gotten rid of the yokai. They bought lots of Tasuke’s potions and herbs in gratitude for what he’d done. Tasuke then gathered all his earnings and the gold and left town a wealthy man. The mushroom still stands near that temple for although people at first wanted to eat it they then worried it might be poisonous for it had once been a yokai after all.