Case file · Folklore / legend
Yorimasa shoots the nue
The Tale of the Heike says that in 1153 a black cloud settled over the imperial palace every night and the emperor fell ill, until Minamoto no Yorimasa shot down a nue: monkey head, tanuki body, tiger legs and snake tail.
1153 CE · 35.02, 135.76 · status: legend
The account
The nue's eerie call was a real bird's, the White's thrush, whose night song was thought unlucky. The creature's body was said to have been set adrift and to have washed up in Osaka.
The sceptical view
A literary legend built on night bird calls and court anxieties during the age of warrior clans.