The kinoko (木の子) is a

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 suc ...

told in legends of the

Kinki region The or the , lies in the southern-central region of Japan's main island Honshū. The region includes the prefectures of Nara, Wakayama, Kyoto, Osaka, Hyōgo and Shiga, often also Mie, sometimes Fukui, Tokushima and Tottori. The metropolit ...

Concept

In the Yoshino region of

Nara Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Nara Prefecture has a population of 1,321,805 and has a geographic area of . Nara Prefecture borders Kyoto Prefecture to the north, Osaka Prefecture to the northwest, Wakayam ...

and in Hyōgo Prefecture, they are yōkai said to be in mountainous regions and are a type of the mountain yōkai yamawaro. They appear as children from two to four years of age and wear clothes that are made of leaves or are blue. It's said that when a human sees one, they look like a shadow, making it hard to tell if one is actually there or not. They usually play together as a group. It is said that woodcutters and other people who work in the mountains catch sight of them from time to time and so they are not an unusual sight to them. However, it is said that if one is not cautious and gets caught unprepared, one could be pranked such as by having one's bentō stolen, so when something like that ever happens, one should use a stick to shoo them away.

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