Back at Part-Time Monster this week discussing the Japanese version of the Old Crone: Onibaba. Have a look!
*Warning: story includes fetal murder and images of nudity.
Back at Part-Time Monster this week discussing the Japanese version of the Old Crone: Onibaba. Have a look!
*Warning: story includes fetal murder and images of nudity.
Ariel Hudnall 
4 responses to “Onibaba: The Demon Hag”
Yikes, that’s quite the story. Makes me want to guard my own liver with extreme caution. 😉
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What I really want to know is why the liver? 😀 In most European tales, it’s always the heart…. but Asian folklore makes use of the liver quite a bit.
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Great post, Alex. I read “The Goblin of Adachigahara” when I was in school, but I forget the author’s name (I think it was in “Japanese Fairy Tales” or some such). The character reminds me in some ways of Black Annis from English folklore (and is a character I’m rather fond of). Although the stories are different, the Maiden, Mother, Crone aspect is commonly found throughout cultures.
From what I remember, just north of Tokyo (near Fukushima) there is a place known as the black mound (within Kanzeji Temple?). Beneath a forlorn tree lie the remains of Onibaba. Apparently, there is also a small museum in Adachigahara displaying the cooking pot and knife she used on her victims. Unfortunately, I never got to visit either as the Tōhoku earthquake struck a few weeks earlier and travel to the region from where I was at the time just wasn’t going to happen. Have you visited it yourself?
The film is excellent by the way. Good choice!
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Truly a creepy story. More than the aspect of the age of Onibaba, it stracks me that her wrong doing in the end harm just the person she wanted to help. To me, the messge seems to be: don’t do wrong even if you mean good, because wrong still remains wrong.
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