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Tsuchinoko
In Japanese folklore, the , literally translating to "child of hammer", is a snake-like being. The name ''tsuchinoko'' is prevalent in Western Japan, including Kansai and Shikoku; the creature is known as in Northeastern Japan. Tsuchinoko are described as being between in length, similar in appearance to a snake, but with a central girth that is much wider than its head or tail, and as having fangs and venom similar to that of a viper. Some accounts also describe the tsuchinoko as being able to jump up to in distance followed immediately by a second jump while still in the air.''Metropolis'', "Fortean Japan", 27 June 2008, p. 12. According to legend, some tsuchinoko have the ability to speak and a propensity for lying, and they are also said to have a taste for alcohol. Legend records that it will sometimes swallow its own tail so that it can roll like a wheel, similarly to the "hoop snake" of American legend. See also * List of cryptids Cryptids are animals that crypt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rolling And Wheeled Creatures In Fiction And Legend
Legends and speculative fiction reveal a longstanding human fascination with rolling and wheeled creatures. Such creatures appear in mythologies from Europe, Japan, pre-Columbian Mexico, the United States, and Australia, and in numerous modern works. Rolling creatures The triskelion is a motif with central symmetry used since ancient times. A variant with three human legs appears in the medieval flag of the Isle of Man. A variant with the head of Medusa in the union of the legs is associated with Sicily. It is not known the meaning it had in antiquity or its original Greek name. The hoop snake, a creature of legend in the United States and Australia, is said to grasp its tail in its mouth and roll like a wheel towards its prey. Japanese culture includes a similar mythical creature, the ''Tsuchinoko''. Buer, a demon mentioned in the 16th-century grimoire ''Pseudomonarchia Daemonum'', was described in Collin de Plancy's 1825 edition of ''Dictionnaire Infernal'' as having "the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north toward the East China Sea, Philippine Sea, and Taiwan in the south. Japan is a part of the Ring of Fire, and spans Japanese archipelago, an archipelago of List of islands of Japan, 6852 islands covering ; the five main islands are Hokkaido, Honshu (the "mainland"), Shikoku, Kyushu, and Okinawa Island, Okinawa. Tokyo is the Capital of Japan, nation's capital and largest city, followed by Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, Fukuoka, Kobe, and Kyoto. Japan is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eleventh most populous country in the world, as well as one of the List of countries and dependencies by population density, most densely populated and Urbanization by country, urbanized. About three-fourths of Geography of Japan, the c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Japanese Folklore
Japanese folklore encompasses the informally learned folk traditions of Japan and the Japanese people as expressed in its oral traditions, customs, and material culture. In Japanese, the term is used to describe folklore. The academic study of folklore is known as . Folklorists also employ the term or to refer to the objects and arts they study. Folk religion Men dressed as namahage, wearing ogre-like masks and traditional straw capes (''mino'') make rounds of homes, in an annual ritual of the Oga Peninsula area of the Northeast region. These ogre-men masquerade as kami looking to instill fear in the children who are lazily idling around the fire. This is a particularly colorful example of folk practice still kept alive. A parallel custom is the secretive ritual of the Yaeyama Islands, Okinawa which does not allow itself to be photographed. Many, though increasingly fewer households maintain a kamidana or a small Shinto altar shelf. The Shinto version of the kitchen go ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Snake
Snakes are elongated, Limbless vertebrate, limbless, carnivore, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes . Like all other Squamata, squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping Scale (zoology), scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more joints than their lizard ancestors, enabling them to swallow prey much larger than their heads (cranial kinesis). To accommodate their narrow bodies, snakes' paired organs (such as kidneys) appear one in front of the other instead of side by side, and most have only one functional lung. Some species retain a pelvic girdle with a pair of vestigial claws on either side of the cloaca. Lizards have evolved elongate bodies without limbs or with greatly reduced limbs about twenty-five times independently via convergent evolution, leading to many lineages of legless lizards. These resemble snakes, but several common groups of legless lizards have eyelids and external ears, which snakes lack, altho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kansai
The or the , lies in the southern-central region of Japan's main island Honshu, Honshū. The region includes the Prefectures of Japan, prefectures of Nara Prefecture, Nara, Wakayama Prefecture, Wakayama, Kyoto Prefecture, Kyoto, Osaka Prefecture, Osaka, Hyōgo Prefecture, Hyōgo and Shiga Prefecture, Shiga, often also Mie Prefecture, Mie, sometimes Fukui Prefecture, Fukui, Tokushima Prefecture, Tokushima and Tottori Prefecture, Tottori. The metropolitan region of Osaka, Kobe and Kyoto (Keihanshin region) is the second-most populated in Japan after the Greater Tokyo Area. Name The terms , , and have their roots during the Asuka period. When the old provinces of Japan were established, several provinces in the area around the then-capital Kyoto were collectively named Kinai and Kinki, both roughly meaning "the neighbourhood of the capital". Kansai (literally ''west of the tollgate'') in its original usage refers to the land west of the Osaka Tollgate (), the border between Yam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shikoku
is the smallest of the four main islands of Japan. It is long and between wide. It has a population of 3.8 million (, 3.1%). It is south of Honshu and northeast of Kyushu. Shikoku's ancient names include ''Iyo-no-futana-shima'' (), ''Iyo-shima'' (), and ''Futana-shima'' (), and its current name refers to the four former provinces that made up the island: Awa, Tosa, Sanuki, and Iyo. Geography Shikoku Island, comprising Shikoku and its surrounding islets, covers about and consists of four prefectures: Ehime, Kagawa, Kōchi, and Tokushima. Across the Seto Inland Sea lie Wakayama, Osaka, Hyōgo, Okayama, Hiroshima, and Yamaguchi Prefectures on Honshu. To the west lie Ōita and Miyazaki Prefectures on Kyushu. Shikoku is ranked as the 50th largest island by area in the world. Additionally, it is ranked as the 23rd most populated island in the world, with a population density of 193 inhabitants per square kilometre (500/sq mi). Mountains running east and west d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Viperidae
The Viperidae (vipers) are a family of snakes found in most parts of the world, except for Antarctica, Australia, Hawaii, Madagascar, and various other isolated islands. They are venomous and have long (relative to non-vipers), hinged fangs that permit deep penetration and injection of their venom. Four subfamilies are currently recognized. They are also known as viperids. The name "viper" is derived from the Latin word ''vipera'', -''ae'', also meaning viper, possibly from ''vivus'' ("living") and ''parere'' ("to beget"), referring to the trait viviparity (giving live birth) common in vipers like most of the species of Boidae. Description All viperids have a pair of relatively long solenoglyphous (hollow) fangs that are used to inject venom from glands located towards the rear of the upper jaws, just behind the eyes. Each of the two fangs is at the front of the mouth on a short maxillary bone that can rotate back and forth. When not in use, the fangs fold back against the ro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metropolis (free Magazine)
''Metropolis'' is a 32-to-48-page free monthly city guide, news and classified ads glossy magazine published by Japan Partnership Inc. targeting the English-speaking community in Tokyo, Japan. As of April 2011, its circulation was claimed to be 30,000.Simone, Gianni,English mags approach milestone, crossroads, ''The Japan Times'', 26 April 2011, p. 12. History The magazine was first published in 1994 as the ''Tokyo Classified''. Early editions, in the broadsheet style, consisted of classified advertisements sourced from shop notice boards. Initially distributed with the ''Daily Yomiuri'', the free magazine is now distributed across Tokyo and beyond to companies, embassies, hotels, bars and restaurants. The magazine was originally owned and operated by Mark and Mary Devlin, renamed ''Metropolis'' in 2001, and sold to Japan Inc. Holdings in 2007. Since 1999 the magazine hosted an annual Halloween party "Glitterball" at Roppongi's Velfarre club at other notable clubs around Tokyo. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hoop Snake
The hoop snake is a legendary creature of the United States, Canada, and Australia. It appears in the Pecos Bill stories; although his description of hoop snakes is the one with which people are most familiar, stories of the creature predate those fictional tales considerably. Several sightings of the hoop snake have been alleged along the Minnesota-Wisconsin border in the St. Croix River valley (Recently Hudson, Wisconsin), Wake County in North Carolina, Prince Edward Island, and Kamloops, British Columbia. In folklore According to folklore, the distinguishing feature of a hoop snake is that it can grasp its tail in its jaws and roll after its prey like a wheel; which is similar to the ''ouroboros'' in Greek mythology or the ''tsuchinoko'' in Japan. In one version of the myth, the snake straightens out at the last second, skewering its victim with its venomous tail. The only escape is to hide behind a tree, which receives the deadly blow instead and promptly dies from the pois ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Cryptids
Cryptids are animals that cryptozoologists believe may exist somewhere in the wild, but are not believed to exist by mainstream science. Cryptozoology is a pseudoscience, which primarily looks at anecdotal stories, and other claims rejected by the scientific community. While biologists regularly identify new species following established scientific methodology, cryptozoologists focus on entities mentioned in the folklore record and rumor. Entities that may be considered cryptids by cryptozoologists include Bigfoot, Yeti, the chupacabra, the Jersey Devil, the Loch Ness Monster, and the Mokele-mbembe. Scholars have noted that the cryptozoology subculture rejected mainstream approaches from an early date, and that adherents often express hostility to mainstream science. Scholars have studied cryptozoologists and their influence (including the pseudoscience's association with Young Earth creationism), noted parallels in cryptozoology and other pseudosciences such as ghost hunting ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yōkai
are a class of supernatural entities and spirits in Japanese folklore. The word is composed of the kanji for "attractive; calamity" and "apparition; mystery; suspicious." are also referred to as , or . Despite often being translated as such, are not literally demons in the Western sense of the word, but are instead spirits and entities. Their behavior can range from malevolent or mischievous to benevolent to humans. often have animal features (such as the , depicted as appearing similar to a turtle, and the , commonly depicted with wings), but may also appear humanoid in appearance, such as the . Some resemble inanimate objects (such as the ), while others have no discernible shape. are typically described as having spiritual or supernatural abilities, with shapeshifting being the most common trait associated with them. that shapeshift are known as or . Japanese folklorists and historians explain as personifications of "supernatural or unaccountable phenomena to th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
