Abura-akago

The abura-akago is a type of Japanese yōkai that appears illustrated in Toriyama Sekien's Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki during the mid-Edo period. They often appear at night in populated areas as mysterious fireballs and hover in the sky. When all night fell, everyone fell into a deep sleep and the light from the lamps emanated from their houses. Abura-akago will break into houses with those lights. When entering a house, they immediately change shape into small children. In this child form, they lick the oil from oil lamps and paper lanterns, known as andon. After that, they turned back into fireballs and flew away to other houses.

Like many other oil-related yōkai, abura akago are said to originate from oil thieves. While the particular circumstances of these oil thieves are lost to time, died and—instead of passing on to the next life—turned into yōkai as a penalty for their sins.

Some related notes:

In Hacchō, Ōtsu of Ōmi ("Afumi") Province, there exists a flame resembling a flying ball. The natives say that long ago in Shiga village there was an oil merchant who stole oil every night from Jizō at the Ōtsu crossroads, but when this man died his soul became a flame. If so, then the baby licking the oil is the reincarnation of this person.

The following words "a long time ago in Shiga village" are quoted from a story about a mysterious fire called "abura-nusumi no hi" (fire that steals oil), which appears in books of the Edo period. , Shokoku Rijin Dan and Honchō Koji Innen Shū. In those books, it is said that there is a folk belief that an oil merchant from Ōtsu, Ōmi Province stole oil from a Jizō statue at a crossroads to sell them, then got lost and turned into a mysterious fire after death. In Mount Hiei, it is said that a mysterious flame known as abura-bō appeared, and in Shokoku Rijin Dan, this flame resembles "abura-nusumi no hi." It can be inferred that Sekien's abura-akago is a reconstructed story based on this "abura-nusumi no hi" in Shokoku Rijin Dan and other books.

Similar to this interpretation, in the novelist Yamada Norio's book Tōhoku Kaidan no Tabi, a kaidan collection, there is a kaidan of Akita Prefecture titled "abura-name akago" (oil-licking baby), including a woman holding a baby in Akida. at a shōya's house, and there the child sucked up the oil of a lantern

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