Loremen Podcast - Loremen S7Ep18 - Kwairyo and the Headless Yokai

Episode Date: May 14, 2026

People are really losing their heads in this tale from old-timey Japan. James dips into the work of Lafcadio Hearn and recounts the legend of the rokurokubi. You want a warrior monk? We got one. Seeking a sinister woodcutter? You better believe that's here. In the market for a system of bamboo water pipes? All present and correct! Come see us in Oxford! ⁠July 1st 2026 (2026)⁠ Edited by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laurence Hisee⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Join the LoreFolk at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/loremenpod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ko-fi.com/loremen⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Check the sweet, sweet merch here... ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.teepublic.com/stores/loremen-podcast?ref_id=24631⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @loremenpod ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠youtube.com/loremenpodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.instagram.com/loremenpod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.facebook.com/loremenpod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Lawmen, a podcast about local legends and obscure curiosities from Days of Yore, with me James Shakespeare. And me, Alastair Beckett King. And Alistair, we're going all the way to Japan again. All the way? Well, figuratively by words, I'm going to tell you a story from Japan, from the work of Lafcadiohern. Lafcadiohern in the house. Yeah. Again, figuratively, he's dead, he's not actually in the house.

No, I hope you're not afraid of hairy things. I'm definitely not afraid of hairy things, James. Well, there aren't any in this one. Oh. Because this is the tale of Quirio and the headless yokai. Breaking news. Breaking ghost news? Not ghost.

Oh, news over Britain? Breaking water. Oh no, breaking water news is that someone's going to have a baby, isn't it? So was that the Breaking News bulletin you were doing, not the Ghost Server Britain bulletin? Oh, yeah, no, it is the same. Quite a similar noise. It's the same Morse code, isn't it? It's more of an e-e-e-e-e-a-e for Ghosts Server Britain, whereas that was more of a

Diss-Ever Britain. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you can hear the difference. Breaking Waterways News, UK. Do you remember a while ago I went to Hayfield looking for the Mermaid's Pool? Famously, James, famously you published a... a field report where you were unable to find said pool. Yeah, about four years ago. It was a lovely little short film.

Is it accessible only to Patriots or can anyone see it? Oh, it's out there on the world, as long as you've got access to YouTube. It's out there on the World Wide Web. Just log on to get on the AOL. Go to YouTube and Google it. Yeah, go to YouTube. And did you hear that Ask Jeeves shut down? This week, who knew?

I nearly texted Chris. I don't know what he's doing for his information now. So get on there and watch James having a completely fruitless search. It's like an Ingmar Bergman film, just wandering bleakly around. With a four-year-old, trying to help. With a four-year-old, who has no idea what he's looking for, really? Just pointing to anything wet and saying, is that the mermaid's pool? So you couldn't find it.

And James, I'm going to go out on a limb. I'm going to say, you'll never find it. Well, Alistair, I'm going to go out on a limb, another limb. Hopefully a different limb. Yeah. Go on, go out of a limb on the opposite side of the tree. so we balance. Yes.

And say that I went up Kinder Scout. No. And I saw it. No. Yeah, it's really visible from Kinder Scout if you actually go up the big hill. So the secret was being above the pond to see it. Yes. Turned out.

That's the best place to see things from a vantage point. You assassin creeded this pond. Does that make sense what I just said there? Assassin creeded? Assassins creed. Yeah, I'm going to go with Assassins creeded. Assassin's creedzed.

You climbed all up and then it added to your map. Yeah, I've not played Assassin's Creed. Does it involve doing like a 10-mile hike over the course of six and a half hours with some children that complain more and more? No, but that could be the big indie hit of next year, I think. I think they have made it into a video game.

It's like Death Stranding, but... Yeah, but yeah, I think it's. It's death stranding. Yeah. But I don't know if the baby complains in that. Peak District Edition. Yeah, a quarter of the way in, the kid starts moaning. Oh, no.

I'm painting them in quite a stereotypical picture. The kids mentioned a little bit a quarter of the way in that they were a bit tired, and then they were fine. Oh, they got a second wind. They were skipping from rock to rock like a pair of goats. They were still absolutely rinsed me about the Mermaid's pool, though. Well, I thought, I've seen the picture of it, and it's a fine pool. It is.

You're quite far. You're well out of mermaid reach. Yes, I should hope so. I like the way, James, you created a lot of buzz around this by posting without explanation an image of a pond in the Patreon Discord, just to let the buzz start growing. Is it? No, it can't be. Has he, has he seen it?

He can't. But they knew. Also, I appreciate that the patrons knew what was going on within about three minutes. Yeah, immediately someone said, MoMAS upon. Is it, James? Oh, we've seen it then? Seen the Meme's Pond this time. Yeah. Yes, yes. That's about as near as I got, apart from, I zoomed in a bit. Because as you say, it's quite far away from the vantage point.

Well, congratulations, James. Thanks very much. An ancient wrong has been righted. Fingers crossed eternal life. Yeah, I don't know if you can say it from a distance. I don't know if you're going to get eternal life. Well, I didn't get struck down instantly. Good. Good.

Off to a great start. So that's all there is. Irresponsible of you to take the kids, really, considering that was a possibility. Oh, blooming out. These modern parents, why, oh, boy. You've got to let kids play near the Mermaid's Pool. When I was a kid, it was come back from the Mervis Pool when the street lights come on. Yeah.

It was just, yeah, just please kids, go out and play near a large body of water. A haunted one. See if you can find a grain silo kids. Hey, kids, when I was a kid, we used to learn guitar from people at crossroads. And we didn't worry about the consequences. Is that Alvin Stardust? Yeah, Alvin Stardust learned how to be Alvin Stardust from the devil. Did he?

Yeah. Oh, right. At the Crossroads. Yeah. And he met him in this abandoned old house which had no ceiling. I think what's happening He didn't have time to fix the windows I'm confusing public safety films

with the Green Cross Code films which are different I thought you're confusing Robert Johnson with Alvin Stardust No because Alvin Stardust did a crossing the road safely film I think I've confused Alvin Stardust with Shaking Stevens

as well Wait no it is shaking Stevens Sorry shaking in shaking the G is inferred shaking Stevens It is shaking Stevens It is Shaky and Stevens. Biggest artist of the 80s. Oh, Shaky.

I'm so sorry, both to Alvin and Shaky. And the 80s. And the 1980s. Oh, this has not been a good day for middle-aged men remembering things correctly. Absolutely not. This, where we better knock it on the head. Do the episode instead. Alistair, we're taking a trip around the world for this one today.

I've just got to warn you. Oh, that's unusual. Because normally we just sort of sit at our computers. Oh, just in words. In the theatre of the mind. Oh, all right. Okay. Wow, the theatre of the mind.

In the travel agents of the mind, we're going to go to Japan again. Japan, friend of the podcast, Japan. Yeah, we're going to go to Japan. At the time of writing, 500 years ago. But the time of writing was over 100 years ago. So I'm going to say 600 years ago, Japan. Wow. Yes, we've got a story from Lafcadio Hearn, who, do you remember Lafcadio Hearn?

I do remember Lafcadio Hearn. I do remember Lafcadio Hearn. He was half Greek, half English, disliked his English, dad, loved his Greek mum, and I've read a little bit more into his story again. However, I'm going to put the caveat in very strongly here. I've only really skimmed. I haven't looked into many of his thoughts and feelings, but the few that I did see seemed okay. Sorry, are you worried about cancelling what if La Caddy O'Hern gets cancelled? Well, it was just I said about the other guy who'd, you know, fought against him. the enclosure act and stuff. Oh, yeah, you said he sounds great. And then he also turned out to have some quite bad opinions.

Yes, yes. Twas often this. Yeah. Lafcadio Heard got in trouble in America. He lived in the 1800s mostly. He got in trouble in America because he was white and he married a black woman. Oh. Mm-hmm.

They did later split up. I don't know all the ins and outs of that. And again, I've only skimmed. I've only skimmed. You wouldn't judge a man for skimming, would you listener? You wouldn't skim a Wikipedia article. He later moved to Japan, married a Japanese woman and had a Japanese family, and collected a lot of the traditional folk tales from around the turn of the 1900 century.

20th century, right? That's how you say that one? Yep, yep. Turn of the 20th century. And a lot of these old legends are, I don't know, it's weird. They sound, lots of elements of them sound really modern. And I don't know if that's just because they've kind of, been adapted into a lot of stuff that is modern.

Like a lot of the yokeye, when you look at Pokemon, it's like, all right, yeah, I can really see the join here between like a demon that hides in an umbrella and a Pokemon that's an ice cream. It's like, yeah, you can see the link kind of thing because the through line isn't very long. Between a ghost that hides an umbrella and a Pokemon who is an ice cream? Yeah, you know what I mean? like these sort of... Yeah, it's kind of the same.

I mean, is it inverted, I suppose, shape-wise it's the same, but just the idea of it. Yes. No, you're absolutely right because lots of, there's lots of countries where there's a sort of shared relationship and ideas and concept sort of flow back and forth. The sort of the English-speaking world's relationship to Japan has been so weird because of, because of Joanne. Because of Joanne. She has a lot to answer for. That's the one thing. Because of Japan's isolation.

and then the war and then the American occupation. So there's a weird thing where sort of ideas start at one side and bounce back and forth and then come back looking unfamiliar. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Yes. We're getting lots of Japanese hudnets now, which were written during the golden age of who donuts, but weren't really translated into English then.

So they're inspired by, you know, Agatha Christie's and what was happening in the West. And then they wrote Japanese hoodnits, which are different, because they're Japanese, And now people are reading the Japanese who done it. And you see the same thing like with, I think I've probably, I'm sure I've said this before, but like Kurosawa's films, Kurosawa's films obviously being influenced by Hollywood cinema and then going on to really influence American films. And to us, they seem very Japanese. But they were very sort of modern and quite strongly influenced by America to a Japanese person

of that time, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, yeah, so yeah, we know the yokai through anime and video games. Yeah. So they seem really contemporary. But as this story will show, this is a 600-year-old story. This is, you know, you do the maths. No, I won't.

This is a story, I guess, set in Henry the 8th time. Did they call it that in Japan? They must have been really confused as to why it was Henry the 8th time. They probably use the Japanese word for 8. Which is? Hatchi, but it depends. Henry Hatchi? Depends, because there are different numbers for different shaped things.

Come on, come on, Japan, shaped thing. Full respect to Japanese culture, but I'm shaking my head at this nonsense. You can't have different numbers depending on what you're counting. Come on. They can and they do. How have you developed a reputation for efficiency? Alistair, it's not just what you're counting, it's the shape of what you're counting. The shape of what you're counting.

Which I think, I suppose, with Henry the 8th, have changed during his life because he famously changed shape. He was quite eight-shaped, actually. By the end, but he was quite the pencil at the beginning. I saw his armour the other day, by the way, another sidebar. Henry the 8th's armour. Henry the 8th's duelling armour, which has a large cup area, if you know what I mean. Codpiece.

That sort of region. Is it a codpiece when it's armour? I don't know, but it's, yeah, it's quite, it's. I didn't know how big cod are, but yeah, it's no Pilchard. Well, he was the king. I guess you get the Godpiece you pay for, I suppose. It's quite peculiarly shaped. Again, and this is something that is, for some reason, regularly mentioned on this podcast.

You know the things that they put money in and then put them in pneumatic tubes in supermarkets? Yeah. It looked like one of them. It looked like a big metal one of them. So you just, the king would just sort of pop his willy in there and then put it on a rack and then flunk it off. It would shoot off round the kingdom. Account.

Oh, no, I didn't mean to send it to accounts. I was just taking it off before the joust. Yeah, wow. I have to requisition it back now. But also it's got a little latch on it as well, because obviously that's the bit where, you know, if you're in armour and you're caught short. Yeah, no, it's like wearing a onesie.

I've not worn a onesie with that function. No, I mean, you'd have the same problem of, wearing a onesie, which is to, you'd have to take it off completely. A big metal onesie for fighting. Yeah, that's what armour is really the end of the way. It is really what armour is when you get down to it. It's just a big metal onesie for fighting. Big metal onesie does sound like a Japanese video game.

Yeah, and you know in that, in gladiators, they've said it like the TV show, but I meant actually out Roman gladiators. Gladiators? Yeah. You know, Roman gladiators, they had that net. was all spiky and that. That's just like a war slanket. Slanket's died out, didn't they?

The onesie really put pay to the old slanket. Yeah, it's like Skype. It didn't manage to take advantage of lockdown. This is your moment, slanket, but then the onesie just swoops in. Yeah. What if legs as well, it said. Yeah, exactly, yes.

Arms are not enough. Also a Bond film. James Bond probably does canonically have legs The slanket down, Bond Slankets are a girl's best friend Slankets are forever They're not

They're not They were replaced by onesies Exactly The way to name Like a Japanese anime or video game franchise is just to take two or three random words

And that's it You don't have to do anything with them It's just like metal gear solid They don't need to mean anything. Bravely default. There you go. You've done it again. Yeah, yeah, you've done it.

Pocket Monster, to be fair, does mean something. So they had to combine it into one word that doesn't mean anything in order to make it a successful Japanese video game franchise. But that's the same as with Bond films, though. That is the same as Bond films. Yeah, their titles don't mean anything. No time to die. What is an octopussy?

We can't get into that now. Okay, okay. I imagine trying to make armour for it. I did, the most recent Bond film at the time recording, was no time to die, which I can only say, like an annoyed dad. I've got no time to die. Which I suppose he is in it, a spoiler.

Anyway, Alistair, nearly 600 years ago in Japan, there was a samurai named It's a guy, Haida Ziamon, Taketsura. Not going to ask you to repeat that, but it does come back into the story later on. with it's a guy, so that's a helpful reminder that we're talking about a guy. And he was a, he was very brave samurai, he was very hard, very good at swords, very good at bows and arrows, very good at spears, very good at spears, very good at spires, very good at bows and arrows. Good with swords can ride a horse a little. You're reading his national record of achievement.

It's a shot window. Was that really only our school where they referred to it as that? I've never heard the phrase, it's a shop window. Well, then you've not met Mr. Lewis. Indeed, I have not. I found my NRA the other day. Different America, NRA is very different. We've done this joke many a time before.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. We may just have mentioned a national record of achievements before on the podcast. Yeah, very difficult to go for a job interview because they asked to have a look at it, but they have to prize it from your cold dead hands. I think I did that one. What version of that? That's an NRA he's firing there.

That's an NRA folder. It's just firing off national records of achievements to celebrate your joke. As if it were like a football game with a T-shirt canon, but it's CVs. That would be a good way. That would be a good way to show initiative. I think employers will be impressed. Get good quality heavy paper. Print out your CV on the printer that you definitely own.

Come on. Are you listening, Jen Alphas? We'll listen to this podcast. This is how we got... Yeah, that's how we got jobs. Yeah, that's how we got mortgages. Firing CVs out of a t-shirt. But bawling up CVs and firing them out of a t-shirt cannon.

Like an employable Scud missile. You've got to show them you're keen. You've got to show them you're unhinged. Anyway, Alistair, 600 years ago. Probably 6001 by now, if I haven't cut some of that out. This samurai, very good are all the things. He fought in the Aikio War for his Lord, Lord Kiguchi, Lord Kiguchi of Kishu. I can't believe it's a guy fought in the IKEA War for Lord Kugur.

I'm learning so much. About Joanne. Yeah, in Joanne, in ancient Joanne. So this is the island of Kewshu, which is the third biggest island of Japan. And it's the one down the bottom left of Honshu being the main one that looks like a banana. And then off the left end of that banana is Qshu, which is where some more wife's family's from around that neck of the woods. Famously full of hot springs.

A third of all the hot springs in Japan are on that island. And they're big into hot springs in Japan. This was the Higo area of Kumamoto. Its character, its mascot is that black bear. That cutesy black bear. I don't know if you ever seen that guy. No, should I Google the mascot? What's he called?

You could Google him if you want. It's a cute black bear. Kumamo. Very cute for a bear. Yes. Very cute for a bear. The eyes, though, the eyes have seen things. Oh, yeah.

They'll follow you around the room. Yeah. Well, they kind of point outwards. It's kind of diverged. The pupils are kind of dilated. The pupils are slits, but they're pointing at the walls. Yes. I mean, it's no more sinister than every other Japanese.

mascot. Yeah. I remember when I lived there for a bit, there was one that was for, I think it was for some sort of like electricity company or something like that. And it was kind of that sort of, that shape of a bear, but it was like a pale blue and it had all like, I guess it was sort of wire, wires, because it was electricity, these tentacles coming out of its face. And it just, it was very Cthulhu, however that's pronounced.

Comrie. It was created in 2010. Who? Really? Come on, apparently. Come on, I assumed he'd been around for ages. Yeah. Oh, well, well, they wouldn't have had that nearly 600 years ago.

No, they wouldn't have, they wouldn't know anything about Mascox. So anyway, his lord, ultimately, the house of his lord came to ruin, and he was a loose samurai. He had no master anymore. He was good. It was disgusty. He had a decent samurai NRA. but he didn't want to go and work for someone else. He wanted to give up the world.

So he cut all his hair off and became a travelling monk with the Buddhist name, Quirio. Monk. Sorry, carry on. Monk. It's mainly for Western monks. I don't have anything against this guy. It's just a noise.

See, I'm not taunting him. If you get taunted, it's your own fault. I'm just going, monk. Monk, monk. You're just doing a drive-by munking. Yeah. Mung. Munk.

Anyway, so he goes around and he's teaching good lessons, like probably a 70s TV show, but he's still hard, but he's being a monk. And he ends up in the province of... So is that the Lone Ranger? Kind of. Or monkey? A monkey.

Yeah, very good. He ends up in the province of Kai, which is in central Honshu, Honshu, the big one. on a shape Thailand. So he's far from home. He's done a lot of wandering. He doesn't mind just sleeping out on the ground. It says that for him, even a bare rock was a good bed, which I think that's a bit much. I do like a firm bed, but not that firm. No, a good bed. I mean, this guy needs to try a bed. Yeah, a real bed. So he'd sleep out under the stars all the time, and he was in this

remote area in the province of Kai, and he's traveling through the mountains, and he lies down and then a bloke comes up to him with an axe and some chopped wood, a woodcutter. The axe is very alarming, but he's immediately offset by the chopped wood. Yes, exactly. And the woodcutters is seemingly kindly woodcutter. He's saying, hey. I love seemingly kind people. He's like, are you, what kind of man can you be good, sir, that you dare to lie down alone in such a place as this? There are haunters about here, many of them. You're not afraid of hairy things. Hairy things is capitalised, so I'm presuming it's some sort of thing.

Right. Yeah. It's a thing. And Quiro's like, no, worries me. I'm a wandering priest. Is he Australian? No. No, he's from Honshu.

No, okay. Is that the Honshu accent then? No worries might. No worries me. This rocks as good as a bid to me. I'm a cloud and water guest. An unsoi no Rio Kaku. Oh, that's what I was going to be proud of myself for pronouncing stuff.

well, but if I do it in Australia... You've accidentally done it in an Australian accent. Yeah. So he's a cloud and water guest, which I guess means he spends a lot of time outside. It says, I'm not at least afraid of hearing things, if you mean goblin foxes or goblin bedgers, Tanuki and Kitsina, I'm guessing. So these are Laphcadio-Hern's ways of translating Yokai that we'd recognize roughly the Japanese names for.

Yes, because of Mario. He couldn't have conceived of Mario back then. They didn't have Mario. in those days you say. Not at all. No. No. This is a pre-Mario.

We are in pre-Mario days, PMD. Right, wow. And yeah, Quirio. They just had like Alex Kidd and Dizzy. It's hard to imagine. A Dizzy egg. That's right. Dizzy was an egg, right?

Yeah, he was an egg. Was he part of the hump? Yeah, I think Dizzy was an egg, James. Yes. Yeah, he was an egg. Is he part of the expanded Humpty Dump? Humpty Dumpty Cinematic Universe. Turns out we'd stop Humpty Dumpty's name earlier.

Sounds real bad. No, no, I don't believe he was connected. I think he was a separate IP. It's just what's it called? Parallel thought. Yeah, exactly. Dizzy Egg and Humpty Dumpe. There's dizzy.

Of course, there's the whole cast. Daisy and all the other oak folk. Dozy? I don't, was there a dozy egg? Yeah, it was a sleeping one, I think. I think there was a dozy egg. Nice one. And yeah, so Quirio, who isn't Australian, but I'm for some reason now doing him with an Australian voice.

I think it's because his name ends with an O now, so it sounds like an Australian nickname. Quirio. Quirio. He's like, I'm accustomed to sleeping in the open air, and I have learned never to be anxious about my life. And the kindly, Woodcutter's like, well, you are brave, because this place is got a bad name, a very, bad name. But as the proverb has it, the superior man does not needlessly expose himself to peril. Look, and he's basically, mate, it's really dangerous to sleep here. I beg you, come to my wretched thatched hut. Is it wretched? That's bad. Yeah. In the way of food, I have nothing to offer you,

but there is a roof at least, and you can sleep under it without risk. And Quario is like, Oh, this is just a kindly woodcutter. He's looking out for me. You know what? I'll go. I think you should put your faith in this seemingly kindly woodcutter. Yeah. So he follows him up the narrow path up a mountain,

through the mountain forest, really dangerous path. There's, you know, the edge of precipices. And he ends up at a clearing at the top of the mountain. There's the full moon shining down. And there's this cute little Thatch Cottage, which got a little vegetable garden, a little grove of cedars. There's somehow, even though he's on top of the hill, there's a little waterfall there as well going down.

Doesn't sound that wretched. And so they go in, they go. You probably had to zoom in a little bit, just like you did. Yes, I did. Could you see me? I did actually zoom in with my hands. You know, like kids touching a book. No way, because you described zooming in on the Mermaid's Pool.

Oh. That's what I meant. Before they go in, there's a little back room. where through a system of bamboo pipes is taking the water, some of the water from the waterfall and they can wash their feet and stuff and get themselves cleaned up before they go in.

I love irrigation of all types. I love it whenever water is moving through a series of bamboo pipes. Yeah. I'm only human. Nothing thrills me more than seeing water being conveyed through small channels or bamboo pipes ideally.

Well, you would have bloomed in love this place. Is it turning a water wheel? I don't be turning oil. I think it is simply fill in a cup on the end of a long stick. And then they use and that to wash their feet. They go in and there's already some people in there. There's four people, some men and some women who are warm in their hands by a little fire. And they greet this priest very respectfully, bow very low.

And Quirio's like, fair play. These guys know how to use the proper, you know, the fancy speech. Yeah. Because there's in Japanese, you've got all different levels of speech. and there's like a particularly high level of speech that you use for dignitaries and stuff. And he's like, fair play. These guys, even though they live seemingly in the middle of nowhere on top of a mountain. They know...

In a wretched hut. In what is described as a wretched hut by the owner. That's actually how the estate agent described it. Yes. But full of potential. And he says, from the kindness of your speech and from the very polite, well, given to me by your household, I imagine that you have not always been a woodcutter. Perhaps you formerly belong to one of the upper classes.

And there were cutters like, you got me. You got me. You know what? He put his hands up, but then he'd drop all his wood. Yeah. I was once a person of some distinction, and he was in service of the daimyo, but he loved women and wine too well, and he acted wickedly. His selfishness brought about the ruin of his house and caused the death of many people.

Wow. Yeah. So now he's trying to pray and make some atonement for the evil that he did and overcome the karma of his errors. And Quiro's like, you know what, mate? I'm a priest. I see you're trying to make good for whatever you did in the past, which you've skirted over a little bit. But by the power of good resolve, those who are strongest in wrongdoing can become the strongest in right doing. That's a good moral. Yeah. And that's the end of the story? No. No. No. What?

This is like, I thought we'd all learn the lesson. You've not watched Married at First Sight, Australia, have you? I have not. No, no. This is like, he's like, I'm going to challenge you here. But I shall recite the sutras for your sake and pray that you may obtain the force to overcome the karma of any past errors. Is that what happens in Married at First Sight Australia? There's less Buddhism, actually, to be honest, I think.

I was just trying to channel one of the judges of that as my inspiration for my accent. But once again, and I've said this before and I'll say it again, sorry Australians for my accent there. Sorry Australians. I don't apologise for my accent, even though it was worse than James's. But I'm not apologising. Anyway, they all go to sleep apart from the priest because he's going to do his prayers. So he sits up and he's doing the prayers and he's praying for ages because he's pretty sure this guy's Some are terrible.

And they just wants to open the little window and have a little lookout before he goes to bed. And he has a look at the beautiful landscape. This guy can't get enough of the outside. Can't sleep. He doesn't have a little look outside. There's the moonlight throwing down all the shadows. And he can hear the crickets and the little what's described here as bell insects. And he can hear the waterfall coming down

and he's like, I am a bit thirsty actually. Oh, and he's got that system of bamboo pipes in that room. So I can just pop there and get a drink and I don't have to wake everyone up. Yeah, go and have a little drink of the foot water. So he very gently pushes apart the sliding screens that separates his room from the main bit. We do have to be quiet in... I've never been in an house where the walls have made a paper, but I imagine you have to go quietly.

You do, and he quietly tiptoes in there into the main room, and he sees in the main room five bodies, lying on the floor. Alist, how many heads do you think those bodies had between them? Min five, I would say. The answer's none. Zero, that's the lowest possible number of heads. Yeah, there's just five bodies, five headless bodies in there. he's like, oh no, what's going on?

Yeah, that's, that is, is that still the Australian accent? No, that was a little reshiresmith, I think. A little bit reshiresmith, yeah. Oh, no. What, how far not. He notices there's no blood, though. Oh. You'd imagine, you or I would easily imagine, if you saw five headless bodies,

blood everywhere. Everywhere, yeah, absolutely. That is going to ruin the tattoo. Tammy. But no, there's no blood. Is that the mat? Yeah, that's the mat. The mat on the floor, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Very good. And I've seen, I've seen house, or at least I've seen about five of the people in

house being killed and I was like, I'm going to stop watching this. I'm sure there's plenty of blood there when she gets eaten by the piano. So it's not a Japanese thing. What, not to have blood. Yeah, Japanese people have blood, even in those days. Loads of it. Yeah, well, these ones. And the headless necks, they didn't even look cut. Oh, they're just tapered to a point?

Like, yeah, nubbed over. Nubbed? Yeah. So are they old? These are, so was he seeing the ghosts, the people who we met, were they the ghosts of the beheaded bodies? Well, he doesn't know at this point. He's like, either this is an illusion made by goblins or... Is it goblins?

I've been lured... If it's goblins, you've got to tell me. Or I've been lured into the dwelling of a rocuro kubi, which is... It's that one, I think. It is. It's the one you'll see it. It's often...

It looks like a... It looks like a person, but it looks like it's got a really long squiggly neck. Okay. In the pictures. But actually, that squiggly neck is just a sort of like a movement line in the old pictures.

The head has actually come off completely. And this guy had read the Soshenki, which is a Chinese collection of guide to the supernatural kind of... Oh, I. see, yes. So the pictures are all a really long neck, but in fact, in this story, the heads just detach. Well, that's what the actual legend is that the heads detach, but some of the early drawings had a sort of string to sort of let you know this head came from this body. And then in later ones, they were sort of thickened up to have a... To make it a long neck. So it's like a

a kid's puzzle book. Yes. There's five of them in their heads have all got entangled and you have to work out which head belongs to which body. Yes, but they don't. They actually do detach completely, which is good because the way to defeat Orokube is to move the body. Then the head's not going to be able to find it. Oh, like if you move the hive of a beehive, the bees just come back to where it used to be and hang around looking confused. Yeah, apparently. Did they?

I did not know that. But I've never had cause to move a hive or not move on. Well, don't. You shouldn't move a hive. Blumen won't. Never move a hive. No, move a hive. What they do, if the head comes back and finds the body,

he's not there. It hits the floor three times, bouncing like a ball, pant in a great fear, and then die. And so he's like, right, it's either this is a goblin's illusion, in which case I can do what I want, or these are Rokurokubi, and they are bad guys, so it's fine for me to try to get rid of them. Because he's got to justify it, because he's, remember, he's a monk, monk. Yeah, yeah, he can't just go around killing people just because they've got no neck. No, but if they are Rokurokubi, it's fair play, it's fair game. So he grabs the body of the erugi, pulls it to the window and shoves it out. And he goes to go out the back door and it's locked.

And he's like, okay, where have they gone? He realizes there's a smoke hole in the roof, which have been left open. That's where the heads must have gone. Yeah. So he tiptoes out the house. Cheeve it's so softly on bars the door. Tiptoes to the garden and he hears voices talking in the cedar grove. And he tiptoes over there.

and he's like hiding from shadow to shadow behind the trees. Then he catches sight of the heads. All five of them flitting about and chatting as they flitted. And they're eating worms and insects, which they find on the ground. And then the boss one, the Eruji says, oh, that priest, he looks tasty. I'm going to look, I'm going to really look forward to eating him. When we shall have eaten him, our bellies will be well filled.

So presumably they do it when their heads were attached. Hold on. If you've got a detached head and you're eating insects and beetles and slugs and things, it's just going straight out your neck and falling back out. Is it going into, have they sort of, I don't know. Or does it teleport? Yeah.

But, and he's like, he's figuratively kicking himself because he's got no legs. Yeah, he couldn't. At this point. He's making a note to kick himself when he reattaches to his body later. Yeah, because he's like, because I told him about that stuff and he started praying, He's praying.

So he's protected by God right now, so we can't eat him. But we're just waiting until tomorrow. Actually, hold on. Do they believe in God, Buddhists? Good question. He was praying to good spirits and that. But they're like, oh, maybe he's asleep by now. We could probably eat him.

So he says to one of him, you go and have a look and see what's going on. So the head of the young woman immediately rose up and flitted to the house, light as a bat. And then it came back and cried out, that travelling priest is not in the house. He's gone. But that's not the worst of the matter. He's taken the body of our arrooji, the leader one,

and I do not know where he's put it. And the head of the erugi assumed a frightful aspect. His eyes opened monstrously. Its hair stood up bristling and its teeth gnashed. And then it shouts out, since my body has been removed, since my body has been removed, to rejoin it is not possible.

Then I must. die and all because of that priest. And before I die, I will get at that priest. I will tear him. I will devour him. And hold on, there he is behind that tree. Oh, they spotted him. Yeah, so they all come, they all start coming at him.

Somehow silently already, Quiro has pulled up a small tree. And it describes here, with that tree, he struck the heads as they came, knocking them from him with tremendous blows. Wow. I'm imagining baseball. Yeah, I was going to say it explains why Japan took so well to baseball. Yeah, it's just... Boom, boom! And the boss guy keeps coming back and he's banging it again and again.

And then the Aruji bites on his sleeve of his robe, and he's... Quiro punches him in the face. And ultimately, it dies. It's hard to visualise this with any kind of dignity for the heads. Yeah. He starts punching it and it did not release its hold, but it uttered a long moan.

and thereafter ceased to struggle, it was dead. But still hanging off his sleeve. But still hanging off his sleeve. And he can't open the jaws. And he goes back to the house. And there's the four other ones all squatting together, all beat up heads rejoined to their bodies. And they see him and they go, the priest, the priest.

And run away into the woods. And so Quiro's like, oh, that was quite a knight. So he looks down at this goblin head attached to his sleeve. He still can't get it off. And he's like, well, what a. souvenir, the head of a goblin. And so he just wanders off. He doesn't care at all.

He goes into town. He goes to the town of sewer. And he's just walking down the street with this severed head, for want of a better word, severed head attached to his sleeve. And unsurprisingly, he gets arrested because they presumed that this, he'd murdered someone and that that murdered person had bitten onto his sleeve. And he's brought before the magistrates. And he, Quiro, is just laughing about it.

He's just like, this is... You're going to find this so funny when you're here. I did not fasten the head to my sleeve. It fastened itself there, much against my well. And I have not committed any crime. For this is not the head of a man. It is the head of a goblin. And if I caused the death of a goblin,

I did not do so by shedding any blood, but by simply taking the precautions necessary to assure my safety. So he's in essence. He kept punching it. Punching is how he did it. It's just a goblin. That's not bloodshed, is it punching? No.

No. But Alistair, the magistrates did not laugh. They didn't see that. The funny side of it. They judged him to be a hardened criminal. Oh. And they were like, why lie? Why lie?

So they order his immediate execution. Apart from one of very old man magistrate who says, Come on, white old magistrate. Let us first examine the head carefully. For this, I think, has not yet been done. If the priest has spoken truth, the head itself should bear witness for him, bring the head here. So they bring it over on his jacket, his Cotomo, and he has a little look at it and he's carefully examining it. And he finds on the nape of its neck these strange red characters, like kanji characters.

and he also points, so he points these out to the other judges. He's like, lads, look at this. And he points out that the neck does not look like it's been cut. It's probably benubbed as well. And he says, look, I think this priest is telling the truth. I think this is the head of Ourokubi. And because it says in the book that they're going to have a writing, they have a writing around the neck.

And they're right there and they're not been painted on. Look, we, and he goes, moreover, It is well known that such goblins have been dwelling in the mountain of the province of Kifes from very ancient times. And he's like, but you, priest, you seem hard. Again, I'm paraphrasing this little bit. You seem a bit hard, aren't you? And he goes, well, you want to samurai? And he's like, you guessed so rightly, sir.

Before becoming a priest, I long followed the profession of arms. Allow me to fire my NRA at you from a T-shirtkin. Again, I added that bit in. And in those days, I never feared man or devil. My name then was Isso Guy, Hyder Ziman, Tachit, Sur of Kishu, and there may be some among you who remember it. And there is a murmur goes around the courtroom.

I can't believe he got away with a perhaps you've heard of me. Yeah. How often does that work out? I remember that. He was pretty hard. And yeah, he's given a full. He goes to the DiMyo's house, has a nice feast. He gets a handsome present.

And he goes off and you know what? He keeps that goblin head as a Miyagi or like a souvenir. Wow. But do you want know what happened to that head, Alistair? Presumably it gave him a sort of buff on his stats. Well, he's going along. You know, he's traveling around on his aim again as he used to. And then a robber stops him.

and the robber's like, give me your clothes. So he takes his jacket off his Conomo and offers it to the robber who at this point notices the goblin head hanging on the sleeve. Give me that expensive purse in the shape of a man's head. It's like, whoa, what kind of a priest are you?

You're worse than me. I mean, it's true that I've killed people, but I never walked about with anybody's head fastened to my sleeve. And he's like, well, hold on, though. I could make some use out of their head in my job of robbing people. frightened people.

I can think of a crime usage for that. Yeah. He's like, will you sell it to me? What do you mean sell it? You're robbing. It's already robbing. You're in the middle of a robbing.

This is the worst robber I've ever heard of. Don't haggle from this point. Is that I shall let you have the head and the robe if you insist, but I must tell you this is not the head of a man. It is a goblin's head. So if you buy it and you got any trouble, remember you were not deceived by me.

Yes. Caval. That's emmptor or whatever. Exactly. Yes. Fire beware. The robber's like, oh, right, what a nice priest you are. You kill a man and you joke about it.

But no, I really want this. So here we go. Let's swap coats. He gives him his coat. He takes that one. Here's some money as well. This is the terrible robber. No wonder he needs props.

Yeah. So he's actually paying for it. Yeah. And he's like, why are you joking about it anyway? And Quiro's like, look, take the thing. I was not joking. The only joke, if there be any joke at all, is that you are full enough to pay good money for a goblin's head.

And again, he walks off laughing loudly. So the robber's got the head, and he's like, brilliant. I'm going to come with some right old crimes with this head now. I don't know exactly what they'll be, but they're going to be so criminal. I'm not going to pay anything. I'm going to get the money this time. This is your lucky day. To let me rob them, surely.

And he ends up, he goes to the nearby town, which is the town. that Quiro was in and he learns the story of the head and he's like, oh no, it is actually a goblin's head, oh no. Oh, right. So he manages to find his way up to that lonely cottage

up in on the mountain top with a cedar grove and he's like, maybe I can sort of give it, if I give the goblin, his body back, it will not curse me anymore, but he can't find the body. So he buries it and erects a gravestone there and they say that that tombstone of the Rokuro Kubi may be seen even unto this day, early 1900s.

Wow. Yeah. Five hundred years later? 400 years, wasn't it? Was it? No, 500 years at that point. Yeah, 500 years at that point. I don't know if it's lasted 600.

Probably not. Probably not. That's the tale of the Rococoquew. Brilliant. Yeah. Very good goblin. So when they say goblin, would we say Yoki? Yonkai.

Yeah, probably. Yeah, I think that's a pretty standard. Yokey type. But specifically it was the genre of Rokuro Kube, which is the one that looks like a person. Yeah. But its head comes off. But his head comes clean off. Yeah, clean off. So are you ready to score me? Yes, I am, yeah. What's your first category? Okay, first up, naming. Now then.

Some great names that sounded a little bit like English words in a way that I found entertaining. Yes. I so guy. I'm such a guy. He's so guy. The IQ. Yeah. Joanne. Joanne. I'm afraid we're going to have to keep there now, sorry.

Unfortunately, we have to keep me calling Japan Joanne in. Quirio. Quirio. Hairy things. Hairy things. Goblins. Goblin foxes, goblin badgers. Goblin badger.

Goblin badger. There was something else that was good. Well, apart from Lafcadio Hearn, who we've rated before. Yeah. Great name. Rokurokubi. The rockerokubi, of course. And a cursory, Google suggests Nukekubi

as a specific name for the one where the head comes off, like a subset, rather than stretches. Miyagi, which is gifts, sort of, Omiyagi is, or you buy people when you go away. Right. You bring people back a present. That's an Omiyagi? Omiagi, yeah.

Lovely, although I was slightly. annoyed to find out about the number thing at the start. That did irritate me a little bit. There's different numbers for different names for numbers. Shapes of things. Yes. No, I agree, James. Numbers have to have different names from each other.

Otherwise, madness would ensue. Alistair, I see, look, fine. I see where you're going with that. It's four, but you've turned in some out. Fifth as well, fine. Anything past that. That's fine. Third, what's going on there, mate, sorry.

Second, what's that got to do with the number two? Yeah. First? Yeah. How am I supposed to get one from first? Oh, no. Yeah, you're right. I should have looked at the log in my own eye.

Exactly. The numerical log. There were third fingers pointing back at you. Yes, there were. Ah, yeah, you're right. I guess maybe the English language doesn't always make sense after all. Yeah, well, I've been shamed. so I'd better give it a five now.

Yeah, fifth out of fifth. I've no choice. Good, good. Okay, second category then, supernatural. Oh, what? Well, I mean, how could it be more supernatural? We had a little... Goblin badgers.

Gobbling foxes. I mean, that's my new swear word. Goblin badgers, what's going on in here? Yes, it does sound like something Captain Haddock would shout. Yeah. Goblin badgers, tintin. Yeah, great. And the whole, the whole of the rocker racquet

be fascinating, very weird kind of a monster. Yeah, and quite spooky with it. Like when he's in that moonlit grove and he opens up the door and then there's, Oh, hello. Five headless people. Oh, yeah. No, I thought you meant when he met them alive and there was clearly something up about the whole. Oh, that's odd as well.

I think that's what makes it a good spooky story, isn't it? Because nothing happens for the first half. Just the vibes are off. It's like, oh, why don't you come back to my house? Oh, it's a bit of a redshed. It's a friendly guy with the big axe. Yeah. Oh, yes, we have got four friends in my house.

They're very polite, almost too polite. Oh, something terrible happened to me. I was a victim of my, I was carried away with my passions. Yeah. Many people died. Yeah. No, it's really good. It's really good.

It's very spooky. It's five out of five. I can't believe I'm doing it. It's five out of five again. Yes. Okay. Perhaps this one is more a comment on what I'm feeling from your scores. It's, you're joking.

Right? Oh, very good, because they thought he was joking when he was joking. Is that a human head attached to your sleeve? And he responded by going, oh, classic. And that they didn't really like that. It's funny that you think that this is a human head. The thing that looks like a human head is the human head, but it's not. It's like that thing about you can't wear ironic trousers.

Yeah. Is that a well-known phrase? I don't know how well-known it is. Very good observation that you can't wear ironic trousers. Yeah. But you can't have an ironic severed head. No, no. This is this heathered head is actually a comment on violence.

A comment on severed heads? Yeah, I'm asking questions about your complicity in violence when you look at it. And then I'm having a good old laugh. All right. All right, Michael Hannake of accessories. More like Michael Handbag. that is ahead, dicker. Nice.

Okay. A bit of a stretch, I think. Not easy. A little one, but it's worth it. Yes. So, yeah. How many points for, you're joking, right?

Well, I feel like... There's a whole course. I feel like the only way to elicit the response, you're joking right, from you, James, would be to give it a very low score. No. Even though it clearly deserves more, I'm going to have to give it a two.

Are you joking? Are you joking, aren't you? That's undermined it as a dignified category. What accent did you do that? Are you joking, aren't you? I don't know what accent. Yeah, I suppose it was on the... It was as close to that as the Australian one was to Australia.

Once again, if you've been affected by any of the accent work in this episode. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Oh, so, eh? Oh, so, are you joking, aren't you? Okay, final category. Your reputation,

precedes you. Oh, very good. Didn't you used to be, hmm, yeah. Yeah, I'm not sure the second category title has added a huge amount. Sort of peters off at the end, doesn't it? Yeah, we don't normally end them with dot-da-dot.

It's hard to pronounce an ellipsis in a purely audio media. It is hard to pronounce an ellipsis, yeah. You just have to sort of go. I hope that people realize you did an ellipsis. Yeah, and your microphone didn't just cut out. There's a lot of snore phone. waking with a start of lower. I think he's, I must have finished.

He fell asleep during an ellipsis, that's what happened. Midlipsis. So yes, you're a reputation procedure. So, yes, because they all, they're all ready to string him up and then he says, perhaps you've heard of me, I'm actually a pretty big deal.

Yeah. And that works for some reason. And then they all go, oh, it's that guy we all love. Oh, it's that pretty big deal. I suppose they wouldn't have known what people looked like in those days. And he did cut all his hair off.

Yeah, no, to be fair. Yeah, he didn't look like a samurai. He looked like a monk. Monk. Didn't you used to be? Not a monk. But I will say this guy, he's pretty, he's a man of the world. You know, nothing surprises him.

He's quite hard. He's quite tough. But he is not ready for the rock of Rukubi. He's taken in. You really, you're really isn't taken in. So the Rocco Rukubi's reputation did not proceed, did not precede him. No. So it can only be a three, I think, because I had that ax man pegged instantly as spooky.

I didn't know his head was going to come off. I'm not claiming that I did. Frankly. We didn't know his head was going to come off. Oh, yeah. The last person would have been the person holding the axe. Exactly. They really tricked us.

Nice work, Laf Caddeo. Yeah, great story. Very spooky man. armful of twiglets. Frightly. I'm not sure. It feels like it should have a, like a moral or something,

doesn't it? You feel like these sort of old tales should have a moral, but it's just quite entertaining, really. Yeah, it's got a lesson, but that lesson is for really bad high women who keep buying things,

not realizing what the job is. Yeah. That's sort of subtext as well, isn't it? Yeah. And I like the way, it just leaves the main character and then follows that.

other guy to the grave just to find out what he did with the head. And yeah, they say it's there till this day. I said that like it felt like that, because that's sort of how he ended that story. It just sort of petered off and they went, and they say it's still there to this day. Yep, there you go. Just doing an ellipsis, James.

That's how I'd end if I were just doing an ellipsis. Oh, yeah. That's how I added my national record of achievement to give the impression that my career was only going to go from strength to strength. Yeah, your achievements had not finished being recorded nationally. Going from strength to, that was another ellipse. Yeah, yeah, I know, it was good, I saw it, I saw it. But if you have to say that it's an ellipsis, is it?

Yeah, that's a point, yeah. It's more of a bodiless yokey, really. Yeah, ultimately, really, yeah, it was bodiless. That was the thing that no one could find. Yeah. It was all head. So there's probably some bits that got cut out of that, which you will...

Almost certainly. Be able to access at patreon.com 4-Sash Lawmenpod. And thank you very much to Lawrence for editing this episode. And... Thank you, Lawrence. That's the end of that, I think. Dot, dot, dot.

Yeah, you've got to just say dot, dot, dot, dot. You've got to bite the bullet. It's so not mysterious, though. You can't use any other sound effect. You can't be like, whack, whack, whack, whack. People don't think it's a duck. People don't think it's a duck.

People don't think it's a gun. Oh, ha, ha, plink, plink. What are you plinking there, James? Plink, plink, plink. Harts are cord key? Yeah, I think so. Have your legs gone to sleep, James? They have, yes.

Do you think you can manage the scores? I reckon, I reckon. I can do that without my legs. Just try and clench as much as you can. Is it an excess or a lack of blood? It's a lack. It's a lack. Okay.

Because I do that sitting down, you know, when you're kneeling down, kind of Japanese style. Yeah. That's how I sit. Well, try and clench everything that isn't your legs then. Try and clench your head. To squeeze. Are you doing it?

With my hands. Just clench as much as you can to force blood down into the legs. Again, we're not doctors on this podcast. It's difficult walking downstairs with your legs. With numb legs. Mm.