Mysteries

Tales

• TaleMiyoshi, Hiroshima, Japan, 1749 to 1859

  The Inō mononoke roku: where the demon king's mallet came from

  In 1749 a demon king is said to have given a sixteen-year-old in Miyoshi a mallet. A comparison of four versions shows none in the text dated 1783.

  

• TaleShush (Susa), Khuzestan, Iran, 638 to 1869

  One writer hangs Daniel's coffin from a bridge at Susa

  Al-Tabari has Daniel's remains found at Susa in 638 and hidden on 'Umar's order. Benjamin of Tudela, about 1167, has his coffin hanging from a bridge.

  

• TaleEdam and Haarlem, Holland, Netherlands, 1403 to 1786

  Before the Edam mermaid had a tail

  Edam says a mermaid named Minne was caught in 1403 and taught to spin. The chronicles name no one and give no tail; the tail first shows in a print of 1645.

  

• TaleUasin Gishu and the Nandi forest, Kenya, 1909 to 1927

  The Nandi bear and the devil called Chemosit

  The first detailed account of the Nandi bear, printed in 1912, gives no year for the sighting. A 1909 book on the Nandi calls Chemosit a one-legged devil.

  

• TaleHanyū, Shimōsa (now Jōsō, Ibaraki), Japan, 1672 to 1859

  Kasane's spirit left Hanyū village twice

  In 1672 a Shimōsa village freed a girl from Kasane's spirit with its own nenbutsu, and the spirit came back. Only then, the one account says, did Yūten come.

  

• TaleNew Mexico and Texas, 1629 to 1690

  The Lady in Blue had no name in 1630

  In 1630 the Jumano told the friars a young woman had preached to them, dressed like the nun in a portrait. Ágreda's name and the blue came later.

  

• TalePars and Kerman, Iran, Sasanian era to 1010

  Haftvad and the worm in the Kārnāmag, Tabari and the Shahnameh

  In the Pahlavi Book of Ardashir the worm of Haftānbōxt drinks blood and dies of molten brass; the girl with the apple appears only in Ferdowsi.

  

• TaleVrhnika (Ober-Laybach), Slovenia, 1684 to 1689

  Vrhnika's baby dragons: Valvasor's lizard and the olm

  A tourism page says Valvasor wrote of a dragon that spews out its young. His 1689 chapter has one dead, lizard-shaped animal a postmaster hung up for weeks.

  

• TaleHigo (Kumamoto), Japan, 1843 to 1882

  Amabie, from a single news sheet of 1846

  In 1846 a news sheet drew a long-haired sea creature from Higo and named it Amabie. Every other known paper about the creature calls it amabiko.

  

• TaleAdams, Robertson County, Tennessee, 1820 to 2017

  Andrew Jackson and the Bell Witch: one letter from 1894

  A 2008 federal listing says Andrew Jackson visited the Bell Witch Cave in 1819. The 1894 book behind the story sets his visit on a road and in a farmhouse.

  

• TalePine Barrens, New Jersey, 1687 to 1939

  The Jersey Devil was first called Leeds’s devil

  In 1700 a Quaker writer called the almanac maker Daniel Leeds “Satan’s Harbinger”. By 1859 a devil born to a woman named Leeds was a tale of the Pine Barrens.

  

• TaleChina, 1679 to 1985

  Before jiangshi hopped, they ran

  In the Qing stories behind the jiangshi, corpses run, grab and cling to trees. Only one of Yuan Mei's comes leaping, and the escorted dead of 1909 walked.

  

• TaleNasu, Tochigi, Japan, About 1400 to 2022

  The killing stone of Nasu and a fox with two tails

  The killing stone at Nasu split in two in March 2022. In the oldest written versions of its legend, the fox has two tails, not nine.

  

• TaleLeifeng Pagoda, Hangzhou, China, 975 to 2002

  Lady White Snake and the fall of Leifeng Pagoda

  When Hangzhou's Leifeng Pagoda fell in 1924, Lu Xun took the snake's side. In the oldest full version, from 1624, she is a python her husband helps seal away.

  

• TaleLikouala, Republic of the Congo, 1776 to 1997

  Mokele-mbembe, report by report, since 1776

  The oldest text behind Mokele-mbembe is a 1776 note on claw prints. The name reached print in 1929, in a report that kept the animal out of the Likuala rivers.

  

• TaleChina; the earliest texts are from Shanghai, 1933 to 2009

  The earliest Nian beast we could find dates from 1933

  The Nian, the beast driven off with red paper and firecrackers, is said to be thousands of years old. The oldest text naming it that we found is from 1933.

  

• TaleHimeji, Hyōgo, Japan, About 1577 to 1952

  How Okiku came to Himeji Castle’s well

  Himeji Castle shows visitors the well Okiku is said to lie in. The oldest version of her story has no Okiku, no plates and no well.