Tradition / Region: Japanese Mythology
Alternate Names: Transforming Shimeji, Phantom Shimeji
Category: Plant, mushroom
The Myth
In the mountains near Shiroishi, there once stood a small, poor temple where a priest lived alone. The forest around it was deep and silent, and few people ever came that way.
One night, after the priest lay down to sleep, he noticed movement in his room. A group of figures had appeared, all dressed in white kimonos and white hats. They walked in a slow circle around his bed, again and again, without speaking. Terrified, the priest pulled his futon over himself and watched through a small gap, hardly daring to breathe.
Only one of the figures made a sound. As the group circled, that person repeated in a low voice, “Salt and miso, how frightening… salt and miso, how frightening…”
The same thing happened the next night. And the night after that as well. Each time the silent procession returned, circling his bed while the same voice muttered its strange warning.
At last, the priest resolved to discover who they were. Before sleeping, he prepared a needle threaded with string and kept it hidden beside him. When the figures appeared again, he quietly reached out and stitched the thread into the hem of the robe of the one who spoke of salt and miso.
Soon after, the figures left as always.
The next morning, the priest gathered the thread and began to follow it. It led him out of the temple, through the forest, and into a grove of towering cedars. There, behind the temple grounds, stood an enormous old stump. All around it grew countless clusters of shimeji mushrooms, packed so thickly they seemed to cover the wood like a living carpet.
The priest understood then that the white-clad visitors had been these mushrooms in disguise. They had come each night hoping he would eat them, for it was said that if salt or miso were sprinkled on shimeji mushrooms, they would stop growing.
And so the priest left the forest undisturbed, knowing that the silent guests of the night were not spirits of the dead, but mushrooms seeking a place at his table.
Gallery
Sources
Tyz-Yokai Blog. (n.d.). Ghost Shimeji. Retrieved March 1, 2026, from https://tyz-yokai.blog.jp/archives/1013072022.html
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