Hitotsume-nyūdō 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 ...

of Japan that has the appearance of an ōnyūdō that has only one eye

Summary

They can be seen in the legends and folklore of various places, and like the mikoshi-nyūdō, there are some that expand and contract their height. In

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin, Keihanshin metropolitan area along wi ...

, it is said that their true identity is that of a fox (

kitsune In Japanese folklore, , are foxes that possess paranormal abilities that increase as they get older and wiser. According to '' yōkai'' folklore, all foxes have the ability to shapeshift into human form. While some folktales speak of employing ...

). Also, a hitotsume-nyūdō appears in the

kaidan is a Japanese word consisting of two kanji: 怪 (''kai'') meaning "strange, mysterious, rare, or bewitching apparition" and 談 (''dan'') meaning "talk" or "recited narrative". Overall meaning and usage In its broadest sense, ''kaidan'' refers ...

Inō Mononoke Roku from the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characte ...

, and there was a picture depicting it attempting to capture the main character Heitarō (refer to image), but this one is a tanuki that has shapeshifted. In Hidaka District,

Wakayama Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Wakayama Prefecture has a population of 944,320 () and has a geographic area of . Wakayama Prefecture borders Osaka Prefecture to the north, and Mie Prefecture and Nara Prefecture ...

, there is a yōkai tale as follows. A young fellow was on the way from Kamishiga to Ena (now Yura, Hidaka District), he came across a splendid procession. It didn't appear to be a feudal lord or a marriage, but when he climbed a tree to spectate, the procession stopped at the base of the tree, and from an awfully large palanquin, a large man with one eye about 1 to tall appeared, climbed the tree, and attempted to attack the young fellow. When the young fellow was absorbed and was slashed at with a sword, it is said that the old man and the procession all disappeared. This hitotsume-nyūdō and the

hitotsume-kozō ''Hitotsume-kozō'' (一つ目小僧) are a ''Yōkai'' (supernatural apparition) of Japan that take on the appearance of a bald-headed child with one eye in the center of its forehead similar to a cyclops. Summary They generally do not cause any ...

has the appearance of a nyūdō (monk), but there is a theory that it comes from the yōkai called "" from

Mount Hiei is a mountain to the northeast of Kyoto, lying on the border between the Kyoto and Shiga Prefectures, Japan. The temple of Enryaku-ji, the first outpost of the Japanese Tendai (Chin. Tiantai) sect of Buddhism, was founded atop Mount Hiei b ...

. As its name implies, it is a yōkai or yūrei with the appearance of a monk with one eye and one foot, and it is said that when a monk idles on his training on Mount Hiei, he would be admonished by being stared at with one eye, and monks that are terribly lazy would be driven out of the mountain. This hōshi has been specified to be what the 18th Tendaizasu,

Ryōgen was the 18th chief abbot of Enryaku-ji in the 10th century. He is considered a restorer of the Tendai school of Mahayana Buddhism, and credited for reviving Enryaku-ji.English display at the TNM His supposed role as a precursor of the ''sōhei ...

(or his best pupil, the 19th Tendaizasu Jinzen) turned into, and it is believed that Ryōgen, who judged the monks on strict precepts, lamented at how the monks became secularized after his death, became thus a yōkai and admonished the monks. Nowadays at

Enryaku-ji is a Tendai monastery located on Mount Hiei in Ōtsu, overlooking Kyoto. It was first founded in 788 during the early Heian period (794–1185) by Saichō (767–822), also known as Dengyō Daishi, who introduced the Tendai sect of Mahayan ...

on Mount Hiei, there remains a picture of this hōshi in Sōjibō, a small temple where monks in training live.

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