So this warrior sees a beautiful woman on the road carrying a baby.
He doesn’t recognize her, but she tells her child,
“That is surely your father, go and get a hug from him.”
The warrior draws his sword, thinking she must be some kind of monster because
what kind of man hugs his child, and slashes her.
She runs away, leaving a trail of blood that ends at a house.
When the townspeople check the attic of the house,
they find a huge dead spider surrounded by the corpses of men.
That was an old jorōgumo story.
What do you picture when I say Japanese spider monster?
If you picture a seksy spider lady, go get help.
You’ve been watching too many...Linfamy videos.
But in this case, you’re right.
Today’s yokai is a spiderlicious seductress called the jorōgumo 絡新婦,
or entangling bride.
But that’s a euphemism for an earlier word (女郎蜘蛛) that’s a bit more accurate,
which means spider hoe.
Japan has a common spider called the golden orb-weaver spider.
This beast grows so big that it can eat small birds.
It lives in shady spots, corners, and your nightmares. Wet nightmares.
They say when a golden orb-weaver spider lives long enough, a few centuries,
it becomes a yokai and gains a hunger for young, good-looking men,
so don’t worry it won’t come after most of you.
Jorōgumo live alone in caves and dark forests, which is fine, but they also live in abandoned homes,
which is not fine these days, because one could be living in the middle of a big city,
and it’s hard to evict someone during a pandemic.
Like many yokai, and 90% of the yokai in your search history,
the jorōgumo can shapeshift into beautiful women.
When a jorōgumo gets hungry, she walks the streets,
asking handsome men to come to her place for dinner. Her dinner.
She can usually play some instrument like a shamisen.
The shamisen was known as the instrument of courtesans.
Its twang could excite any man.
It’s not hard for a jorōgumo to find a willing man because she’s a gorgeous yokai
with centuries of experience in human interactions,
and he has a pp.
When a man enters her lair, expecting a hot and sweaty night, he gets what he asks for:
a hot and sweaty night trying to escape her web.
She would change back into a spider or a half-spider half-lady thing and inject her victim with venom.
The man would take days or weeks to die, his agony only interrupted by the jorōgumo
occasionally taking bites of his flesh.
This ordeal sounds pretty awful, but judging by YouTube comments, some of you perverts
wouldn’t mind as long as she’s pretty enough.
Jorōgumo can even control normal spiders.
Here’s an old drawing of one with her spider legs sticking out from her dress,
with each leg controlling a spider like a marionette.
Looks like these spiders are the fire-breathing kind.
Jorōgumo can survive in empty homes within bustling cities without anyone noticing they
were there, not unlike the typical city dweller.
They go around tricking and draining the life from people, leaving their victims’ corpses on the streets,
not unlike the typical city dweller.
Many jorōgumo stories happen around waterfalls, especially the Jōren Falls in the city of Izu.
One story goes like this.
A man was resting next to the Jōren Falls when a spider thread shot out from behind
the falls, attaching to his leg.
A little surprised, he removed the webbing from his leg and attached it to a tree stump.
At that moment the thread went taut and pulled the entire tree stump behind the waterfall,
and the man thought, “I hope she’s a vegetarian.”
Getting pulled behind a waterfall by a spider thread,
and tricking the jorōgumo using a tree stump are 2 really common jorōgumo tropes.
Here’s another story.
A woodcutter dropped his axe in the pool beneath the waterfall.
He prepared to jump in, but a lovely lady emerged from the water to return his axe.
He thanked her, but she told him to keep it a secret.
Never tell anyone about her.
The man tried to stay silent, but men have a part of the brain that forces them to talk
about their interactions with beautiful women.
So one drunken evening, the man spilled the story to his friends.
That night, a silken string shot out from the darkness to pull the man outside.
The next morning, his corpse was found in that pool beneath the waterfall.
In another story, a woodcutter met a woman at the waterfall and fell in love.
He visited her everyday and became weaker everyday.
A Buddhist priest heard of this and thought,
“Namu Amida Butsu, this spider fetish is out of control.”
He went to the waterfall with the woodcutter to see what’s up.
Sure enough, he was met with a spider thread attack.
But he used his priestly powers and let out a shout, making the thread retreat.
The woodcutter realized that he had indeed fallen in love with a spider woman,
and thought with wide eyes, “Eh, it’s not that bad.”
Never underestimate the power of love controlled by a pp.
The woodcutter went into the deep forest to ask a tengu for permission to marry this jorōgumo,
but he was denied.
Even so, he couldn’t leave his queen.
The last glimpse anyone had of the woodcutter was him being wrapped in webbing
and pulled behind the waterfall.
There is good jorōgumo lore too.
Like there was one who lived in a pool in the forest, and rescued anyone who fell in.
People erected a shrine to worship her.
But these stories are rare, it’s mostly the murdery type, which we prefer anyways.
For more Yokai Explained, check out these videos.
Alright, we have a new Emperor patron on Patreon today: Derik Oishi, he’s delicious.
We also have some patrons: Hafida Medroub, Kathryn Patterson, Kelly Aziz, Lau_Maintenance,
John MacLellan, Silver Blossoms.
Thanks so much.
Alright I love you, and spread the knowledge!