Aosaginohi

Edo period

In the physician Nakayama Sanryū (中山三柳)'s Daigo zuhitsu (醍醐随筆; "Cream-of-the-crop essays", Kanbun 10/1670), a certain person thought he shot a hikarimono (光り物; "glowing object"), but it turned out to be an aosagi (鵊鶄, lit "blue heron"), i.e., a glowing bird. The leishu type Japanese encyclopedia Kōbunko [ja] which quotes this passage from this work files it under the goisagi subsection and not the aosagi subsection,^[4][5] and these same characters (鵊鶄) is typically read goisagi in other quotes from works, below.

Yamaoka Genrin [ja]'s Kokon hyaku monogatari hyōban [ja] (pub. Jōkyō 3/1686]) describes a strange recurrent fire or light phenomenon (cf. aburabō [ja]), with the attached story as follows: an eastern Ōmi Province oil merchant who had supplied oil to the Main Hall (chūdō) of Enryaku-ji had been revoked its 10,000 koku (annual rice harvest volume) of land privilege (chigyō [ja]), and with the business floundering, died in misery. Afterwards, strange glowing objects were seen near the site of that oil merchant's business, and seemed to be drawn to oil-lit light, so the phantasm was dubbed "oil thief" (though it did not actually steal). Someone even claimed to have seen a shaven flying head blowing fire. The author Genrin weighs in on the events and concluded these were "blue heron" sightings. A heron of advanced aged, he writes, always gleams when flying by night, glowing its eyes in sync, with the beak is pointed ferociously.^[a] This is naturally often mistaken for a hikarimono (phantom light).^[7][8][9]

A comparative cognate example ^[8][10] is the story in Kikuoka Senryō [ja]'s Shokoku rijindan [ja] (pub. Kyōhyō era/1741–1744) concerning the eerie "hag fire" story (cf. uba-ga-bi).^[3] The tale is set in Hiraoka, Kawachi Province (later Hiraoka [ja], Osaka). An old woman who was stealing lamp oil was rumored to have turned into a uba-ga-bi (姥ヶ火; lit. "hag fire"). But there was a witness who saw it land nearby, and he lay flat to observe furtively, and discovered it to be a chicken-like bird, and heard beak-tapping sounds. It flew away after a short pause, but the man saw that in flight it looked like a round-shaped fire from a distance. The author concludes it must have been a night heron (goisagi).^[11][8][12]

The encyclopedia Wakan sansai zue (pub. 1712 has an entry for goisagi (鵊鶄; "night heron"), which in its flight seemed like fire, looked especially bright on a moonlit-night, so that people were wont to mistaken it for a yōkai.^[13][14][15]

According to Noda Shigegata (野田成方)'s Urami kanwa (裏見寒話; "Reversal view cold tales") (preface dated Hōreki 2/1752), which was a Kai Province geographical treatise, there was a grass plain called Mikazuki-hara in Senzuka (now part of Kofu, Yamanashi) where fire appeared at night and looked like lanterns from afar. The geographer adds that whenever a fire about the size of a kemari (Japanese soccer) ball appeared in the pine and sugi forests, bobbing up and down, coastal folk called it "sagi-bi" or "heron light". It was explained by someone that when the "blue herons" perch on trees and get shaken in the wind, their wings will shimmer.^[16][14][b]

The bird-glow is also featured in the well-known illustrated compendia of yōkai from the period, namely Toriyama Sekien's Konjaku gazu zoku hyakki (pub. 1779)）and writer Tōsanjin and illustrator Takehara Shunsen [ja]'s Ehon hyaku monogatari (1841).

Sekien's "Aosagi-no-hi" page (cf. fig, right) bears a caption which reads that an aged "blue heron" (translated as grey heron) has gleaming wings in night flight, with eyes aglow, and "their beaks are fiercely sharp", etc. (nearly the same description as given by Genrin discussed above).^[c][17][18]

In the Ehon hyaku monogatari, Shunsen's illustration (cf. fig, above right) of the "Goi-no-hikari" (lit. "fifth rank glow", i.e. "night heron's glow") explains in caption that the bird was bestowed the courtly fifth rank, and began to lighten up its surroundings with its luster.^[19] The book also contains prose text penned by Tōsanjin, which delves into the ying-yang theoretical consideration on flames, and states "when on sees the fifth-rank heron (night heron) resting in the pitch-dark night, it appears like fire glowing blue", adding that the phenomena of glow-in-the-dark abound in the natural world, etc.^[20][14]

The kibyoshi genre writer Koikawa Harumachi [ja]'s Bakemono shiuchi hyōbanki (妖怪仕内評判記; "Compilation of Monster Critiques", pub. An'ei 8/1779) (cf. fig. right) is a book about the boss yōkai ōnyudō holding a contest of shiuchi or tricks to be played on humans, in order to rank them. The aosagi blue heron ranks second, for it turns into an eerie hikarimono glowing objects by night to frighten people, and according to Harumachi, transforms into a burning pillar about 5 feet (shaku) tall. The bird shrinks its neck thus mimicking the shape of a square pillar, and flaps its wings crossed over to simulate flickering flames, according to this writer.^[21][22]

Some years later, another gesaku (burlesque) writer Sakuragawa Jihinari [ja]'s Bakemono haruasobi (変化物春遊; "monsters' spring trips/jests", pub. Kansei 5/1793) claims that in Yamato Province there stood a large willow tree from which blue flames could be seen on a nightly basis, and hence called bake yanagi ("freak willow"), and people avoided it. One rainy night, a man thought he was confident no fire will burn during a downpour, and approached, whereupon the willow grew bluer than ever and the man collapsed. The phantom light was caused by the "blue heron" according to the storyteller.^[23][24][14]

The miscellany Mimibukuro [ja] records an event around the autumn of (Bunka 2/1805), where a man from Yotsuya, met a person clad in white without a lower body in the streets during the night, and suspecting it to be a ghost, turned around to see a glowing single eye, so he abruptly slashed it with a sword. When the man stabbed the fallen creature for the final blow, it turned out to be a heron. He kept the heron and ate it, so the rumor spread that he ate ghost stew.^[25][14][10]

Katō Jun'an's Saezuri gusa [ja] (written during Tenpō era to Bunkyū 3, c. 1833–1863; published 1910) explains that a ying fire is blue light without a flame, and emitted by such animals as foxes, weasels, night herons, jellyfish, octopi, and fireflies.^[26]

Modern examples

Witness reports are plentiful that grey herons and night herons glow blue-white, just like the fabled aosagi-no-hi.^[2]

there are also legends that the heron flies while carrying a burning piece of branch in its mouth, or that it spits fire. In the Metropolitan Tokyo area, there has been a reported sighting of the night heron spewing fire at the surface of the Tama River.^[27]

On Sado Island, Niigata Prefecture in what used to be Niibo [ja] village (now part of Sado city), legend has it that strange fire phenomena called "dragon lantern" (ryūtō [ja]) were seen flying almost nightly by the local ume tree at Konpon-ji [ja] temple. When someone shot it with an arrow, it turned out to be a heron.^[28]

Ibaraki Prefecture's local historian Kimimori Sarashina (更科公護) published an instance of him witnessing fuzzy blue-white light flying around May or June c. 1928, in the city of Chikusei, and remarks that night herons are often said to glow.^[29] In Ibaraki township, he saw a yoshigamo (falcated duck) and a karugamo (Eastern spot-billed duck) glowing.^[30] Another local historian Mitsuji Zama [ja]^[d] reported the folklore around Kasumigaura, Ibaraki that a heron supposedly turns into a fireball.^[31]