Twice ToldThe Amabie sheet: Higo no kuni kaichū no kai, Kōka 3 (1846)
- Language
- Japanese
- Reading
- transcribed from the page image
- Translation
- ours
- Retrieved
- 24 September 2026
A single printed sheet in the newspaper collection (新聞文庫) of Kyoto University’s Main Library, catalogued as 肥後国海中の怪 (アマビエの図), “A marvel from the sea of Higo (picture of Amabie)”. The left half is a woodblock picture of a long-haired creature with a beak standing in waves; the right half is seven columns of text in cursive script and a date. It is the only known document that names the creature Amabie.
肥後国海中江毎夜光物出ル所之役人行 見るニづの如之者現ス私ハ海中ニ住アマビヱト申 者也當年より六ヶ年之間諸国豊作也併 病流行早々私ヲ写シ人々ニ見セ候得と 申て海中へ入けり右ハ写シ役人より江戸江 申来ル写也
弘化三年四月中旬
Translation
In the sea of Higo a shining thing came out every night. When the local official went to look, a creature like the one in the picture appeared. “I am called Amabie, and I live in the sea,” it said. “From this year on there will be good harvests in every province for six years. But illness will spread. Copy my likeness quickly and show it to people.” Then it went back into the sea. The above is a copy of what the official sent to Edo.
The middle ten days of the fourth month, Kōka 3.
Notes
- Transcription conventions: one line per column of the sheet, in the characters as printed; the punctuation is ours, and the quotation marks in the translation are ours too. The sheet has no punctuation of its own.
- 江 in the first and fifth columns is the kana え written with its source character, the particle “to”. Nagano Eishun’s transcription (2005) writes it え; the library’s own sample transcription writes 江.
- 如之者: the character after 如 is a single hooked stroke. The library reads it 之, Nagano reads it の; the sense, “a creature like”, is the same.
- 六ヶ年之間: after 六ヶ the brush joins the next characters into one looped form. Both published transcriptions read 年之間, “for six years”, and so do we.
- づ is 図, “the picture”. The text sends the reader to the drawing and gives no description of the creature beyond “a shining thing”.
- The creature’s name is written アマビヱ, with the old kana ヱ, not エ.
- A thin horizontal stroke stands above 病 at the head of the fourth column. Neither published transcription reads it, and we leave it out.
- The date is the middle ten days of the fourth month of Kōka 3, which runs from 6 to 15 May 1846 by our conversion. It dates the sheet, not the sighting; the text gives no date for the creature’s appearance.
- The last sentence uses 写 (“copy”) twice: 右ハ写シ役人より江戸江申来ル写也. It can be read as “the above is a copy, being a copy of what the official sent to Edo”, or with 写シ役人 as “the official who made the drawing”. Either way the sheet presents itself as a copy of an official’s report. Nagano (2005) doubts that any such report existed.
- The sheet names no printer, no place more exact than the sea of Higo, and no official.
- The library’s accession stamp on the sheet reads 昭和17.5.30 (30 May 1942); a label marks it 新聞文庫, 繪.