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Yokai, Yocat: Cat Yokai from Japanese Folklore
Yokai, Yocat! Yokai are the backbone of Japan’s mythology and folklore scene. There are so many to choose from and many of the monsters have short folktales associated with them, so to help us choose we perused Thersa Matsuura’s book of Japanese Folklore and settled on a monster we know best- cats! Over the years on this podcast, we have covered a few Japanese stories, including The Tongue-Cut Sparrow, The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter and The Tale of the Boneless Jellyfish, as well as referenced Japanese storytelling traditions and yokai whenever they were relevant to other tales we were…
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The Tale of the Boneless Jellyfish
The Jelly Fish’s Journey Japan, 7 minute read How did a mishap with monkey liver lead to the Jellyfish losing all his bones? This story comes from the 1910 book “Green Willow and Other Japanese Fairy Tales” by Grace James who was a folklorist and children’s writer specializing in Japanese stories. Her book credits many of the stories to the Ko-ji-ki, or the Book of Ancient Matters, although as far as our research can tell, this Jellyfish story is not specifically in that book but more so a folktale told through the generations. The Tale of the Boneless Jelly…
Tales from the Enchanted Forest 