People started to go missing in the capital, especially young women.
One day, a government official came to the emperor with tears in his eyes.
His beloved daughter had gone missing.
He and his wife loved her dearly, so much that they had servants accompany her outside
the house to shield her from strong winds, which might give us a clue as to why she disappeared.
He and his wife were in agony.
They called in a fortune teller, plopped a ginormous bag of gold coins in front of him,
and asked him to find their daughter.
What the fortune teller saw frightened them.
The oni living on Mount Oe (大江山) had abducted their daughter, along with countless
other unlucky souls that the couple didn’t care about.
Oni were basically demons or ogres.
Sadness in his face, the fortune teller solemnly wished them luck in rescuing their daughter
and walked out, the bag of coins jingling on his back.
The emperor pissed-offedly summoned a brave warrior to eliminate the oni threat.
His name was Minamoto no Yorimitsu (源頼光), or Minamoto no Raiko.
Raiko and his handful of men were nervous.
Demons were strong, it probably wasn’t a good idea to attack head-on, so they would
disguise themselves as Buddhist monks who lived in the mountains and tricked demons.
Being devout worshippers, they prayed to the gods and Buddhas at 3 different shrines, then
set off towards Mount Oe wearing their monk garbs.
On the way up the mountain, the crew of six met 3 old men who happened to have valuable
information and directions to the demon lair.
They said the demon leader was Shuten Doji, which meant Drunken Demon.
He was one of the most powerful demons out there.
Thus named because he was an alcoholic.
When drunk, he would lose attention of everything around him.
Which seems to be a critical weakness for one of the most powerful demons.
The old men gave the band of warriors magical sake that would make demons lose their powers
and become confused.
The former because it was magic, the latter because it was sake.
The sake did not affect humans.
They also gave Raiko a cool helmet and told him to put it on when cutting off Shuten Doji’s
head.
After receiving the magical toys, the warriors thought, “Why do these guys have magical
toys?”
Then they realized the old men must have been gods of the 3 shrines they visited before
their quest.
Obvi!
They got on their knees and tearfully thanked the old men, then went on their way.
They met a young lady by a river, washing a bloody dress, and confirmed that the demons
did capture the daughter of that government official we saw in the beginning, along with
many other women.
The young lady herself was a daughter of another official, now she was a prisoner.
She lamented about her captivity.
The demons lived in a large palace.
They forced the captive maidens to enter the demon palace at night and ahem give them massages.
When the demons were feeling frisky, they would drain the blood from a woman’s body
and eat her flesh.
In fact, she was washing the blood-stained dress of a victim at that moment.
Raiko promised her they would defeat these vampire demons and free her.
She said they weren’t vampires, just demons.
Raiko said, “Oh.”
When they reached the demon palace, the guards looked hungry for their flesh, but invited
them in after notifying their boss Shuten Doji.
Shuten Doji said he was shocked that humans arrived.
The mountain terrain was torturous, surely no human could have traversed it.
Raiko explained that they were mountain priests.
They were following the sacred path laid down long ago by Holy Monk Bob-
bi-
son,
but got lost.
He asked the demon for a place to stay.
In return, they would share their special one-of-a-kind sake.
Shuten Doji agreed, probably because he thought these Buddhist monks were weird and interesting,
and he’s an alcoholic.
But, still suspicious, the demon offered the monks some demonic delicacies from the cook:
maiden’s blood sake to drink and human limbs to eat.
Raiko and his men...
did not hesitate.
They gulped down the blood sake and went to town on the human meat.
Shuten Doji was like wtf.
Raiko explained un-nervously.
Their Buddhist sect taught that you should eagerly accept any gift given with good intention,
even if you don’t like it.
This line actually worked, it made the demon boss feel shame and regret his cannibalism
test.
He told the warriors to no longer worry,
“there is nothing false in the words of demons.”
Raiko then took the opportunity to offer his sake to Shuten Doji, drinking it first to
show that it was not poisoned and that there is a lot of false in the words of humans.
The demon drank it, loved it, shared it with his other demon buddies, and they all got
smashed.
He started talking about how he came to be the famous Drunken Demon.
Now there are a ton of different origin stories for Shuten Doji, I will give you the most
colorful one, in my opinion.
As a human boy, he grew up in a mountain temple and was training to be a priest.
However, he did not get along with his peers and always got into fights.
His masters scolded him all the time.
He also drank a lot, which pretty much guaranteed an F on the BPATs.
One day, the temple had a festival and, being a drunk ass, he put on an demon mask and went
around scaring everyone.
At the end of the day, to his horror (and everyone’s delight), karma struck and the
mask eventually fused into his skin.
His face now reflected his inner darkness.
He was ashamed and ran off to live deep in the mountains, he hated humans.
The demon mask boy accumulated a following of criminals and they all slowly transformed
into actual demons rampaging nearby towns.
Everyone feared the Drunken Demon.
Back at the Palace of Surprisingly Hospitable Demons...all the demons were on the ground,
slurring their snores.
Shuten Doji had retired to his bedchamber.
When our heroes entered, they found that the sake had changed him to his true form.
20 feet tall, huge horns, and a hideous face, like how the cute guy from the bar looks the
next morning.
Raiko donned his cool helmet and swung his sword at the monster.
Shuten Doji woke up at the last moment and cried out in despair.
“You deceived me!”
His flying head said.
“That is what humans do.
Unlike demons.
There is nothing false in the words of demons!”
With its last bit of life, John Carpenter’s flying head tried to bite off Raiko’s lying
monk face, instead it smashed right into Raiko’s helmet and died.
Our heroes rescued the women and came back to the capital, where they were showered with rewards
and women.
Shuten Doji is one of the most famous oni and is one of the Three Most Evil Yokai of
Japan.
Yokai are basically monsters, spirits, or demons.
There are many different versions of this story, this version is the oldest one that
we know of.
This story belongs to a genre called otogi zoshi (御伽草子), which translates into
“companion tales.”
These were short stories from the 1300s to 1600s written for entertainment and to spread
religious and moral teachings.
Besides just being monsters, oni were often used to give voice to the oppressed and social
outcasts.
If you paid attention, and you better have, you’d see that in the story, Shuten Doji
was the honest one, and the heroes were the deceitful ones.
And the only people you see captured were daughters of government officials.
It didn’t focus on the kidnapping and killing of the common folk.
Hey guys, I’m almost at the $300 goal on Patreon, please help me get there!
Once we reach the goal, we’ll hold a contest only for patrons to win this book, Premodern
Japan.
It’s easy to read and has a bunch of info about Japan before the modern age.
It’s like almost a $50 value on Amazon last I checked, but you can get it for free by
answering a question I’ll have for you in the contest.
Also, shout out to Robert Dailey for being a new patron, welcome!
Alright much love guys, spread the knowledge.