Subject
Rokurokubi 轆轤首
The long-necked woman of Japanese legend. By daylight an ordinary woman; at night her neck leaves her collar and keeps going while her body stays where it lay. The name is younger than the figure — it appears in print in the 1630s and 40s, and the story arrives in the Edo kaidan collections shortly after.
Notes
- The Coughing Maid A maid with a bad chest, a mistress with a lamp, and the physician who wrote the night down and then explained it away.
- Rokurokubi, the Long-Necked Woman The long-necked woman of Japanese legend: ordinary by daylight, a neck that leaves her collar by night. The name is younger than you would expect.
- The Oldest Rokurokubi Story Is About a Head The 1677 tale published under that name has no stretching neck in it at all. A head leaves its body, travels the roads at night, and laughs at a traveller.
Volume
Japanese Horror Folktales Collection
ROKUROKUBI
Tales of the Floating Head Yokai
Fifteen Japanese tales of strange heads and impossible necks — and of what people do after seeing them.
Included with Kindle Unlimited