Tradition: Japanese Mythology
Alternative Names: Ringo-kai
Category: Spirit
The Myth
Ringo-kai is a strange supernatural being from Kakunodate, in Akita Prefecture, Japan. Although it initially appears as a mysterious visitor, its true form is an apple tree growing in a field behind an old man’s house. The creature is associated with rotten fruit and a bizarre exchange involving human and supernatural excrement.
One night, the strange being visits an old man’s home and asks him to provide some feces to eat. Astonished by the unusual request, the old man nevertheless complies. The visitor eats the offering enthusiastically, exclaiming that it is delicious. Before leaving, the being takes some warm feces from its own body and insists that the old man try it. Though initially offended, the old man eventually tastes it and discovers, to his surprise, that it is extraordinarily delicious, making his cheeks tingle.
The strange exchange becomes a nightly ritual. The old man provides human feces, and the visitor gives him its own in return. Eventually, however, the old man begins to suspect that something is wrong. After their usual exchange one evening, he secretly attacks the visitor from behind with a machete as it prepares to leave. The creature cries out and flees into the darkness.
The following morning, the old man follows the visitor’s footprints to a large apple tree in the field behind his house. A fresh machete wound remains clearly visible on its trunk, revealing that the tree was the mysterious visitor all along. The feces the being had given him as a reward were actually rotten apples from the tree.
The tale reveals the Ringo-kai as a supernatural tree-being capable of appearing in a human-like form and deceiving people through an extraordinary exchange. Its story combines grotesque humour with a familiar folkloric motif: a seemingly human visitor is revealed to be a transformed part of the natural world, and physical evidence of an attack exposes its true identity.
Sources
“Ringo-kai.” 新版TYZ 妖怪図鑑 (New TYZ Yokai Encyclopedia). https://tyz-yokai.blog.jp/archives/1010654449.html