Kwaidanote
ROKUROKUBI
Japanese Horror Folktales Collection — No. 5

ROKUROKUBI

Tales of the Floating Head Yokai

Fifteen Japanese tales of strange heads and impossible necks — and of what people do after seeing them.

A maid coughs through the autumn nights while the mistress of the house lies awake and watches. A manservant names his own condition and asks to be allowed to leave. A blind teacher of the samisen is watched by young men who came for a fright and end up helping.

The old records do not describe one settled creature. In some, the neck lengthens while the body sleeps. In others, the head comes away entirely. One writer dismisses the whole phenomenon as impossible; another admits that he never saw the neck come off.

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15 tales in this volume

  1. A Man with a Sword
  2. The One who Coughed
  3. My Head Never Came Off
  4. As If it Smiled
  5. Wake Me
  6. The Hand in the Corridor
  7. Over the Wall
  8. The Water Basin
  9. The Head that Would not Let Go
  10. The Cloth at the Throat
  11. The Ascetic's Boast
  12. The Head Above the Beam
  13. A Bit More to the Left
  14. Something Like a Pale Rainbow
  15. The Girl who Never Saw It

The first of them is here in full.

Notes on this volume