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Fairy Tale Stories    Children's Fairy Tales    Fairies     Picture Novels    Blog     About Tengu The Tengu's Magic Fan A tengu gives a lazy man a magic fan who uses it to trick his way into wealth but in the end the man is punished. The Tengu and the Peasant A tengu tells a man he is going to eat him but the man being clever tricks the tengu. The Tengu and the Boy A bit of a Flash fairy tale about a Tengu who takes a boy and shows him Japan and teaches him many things. About the Tengu The tengu can appear as a humanoid creature with the head, tail, and wings of a bird or as a red skinned humanoid with a giant nose instead of a beak and no real bird like features. The tengu are very much related to birds, not only in their depiction but in many other aspects of their life. They hatch from large eggs, are often depicted as perching in trees, and make their homes in trees as well.  As with many such creatures they are internally dualistic, seeking at times to eat people who don’t necessarily appear to be guilty of anything. They also often seem to take great delight in spreading chaos. In some fairy tales tengu punish the pious yet in others they punish the vain. The tengu themselves hated vanity yet their long nose was in Japan a symbol of vanity and conceited people where historically referred to as becoming tengu as a form of slang.  They will lead humans astray with their magic by causing the humans to go mad so that they end up wondering the wilderness forever.  The Buddhists often depicted tengu as being a form of unholy spirit which would carry off monks or possess women in order to seduce and corrupt monks. The tengu in this role would also act the part of devil getting people to worship them in return for certain profane powers or vanities.  Tengu are often depicted as being similar to wilderness monks and were said to have trained many ninjas and samurai. They were depicted in some legends as protectors of the forests from woodcutters and those who damage the vegetation. And as with many wilderness protectors tengu were often worshipped as a form of kami. Offerings were made to the tengu before trees in many forests could be cut. The tengu of Saburo is worshiped on the mountain and the tengu is one of the primary deaties in Izuna Shugen where he is depicted as being surrounded by fire and riding a black fox.  They also carry a number of magical items which humans have gotten a hold of. In one story the tengu’s fan was able to cause a persons nose to grow or shrink. In another the tengu’s fan cause the wind. There is also a tale of a boy who tricks a tengu who into giving him a straw cloak which makes him invisible by pretending to have a magical bamboo pole which allows him to see distant objects.  In another tale a tengu touches a man with twig like wand causing him to burst into flames.