Tradition: Japanese Mythology
Alternative Names: Ino no Muko, Boar Son-in-Law, Wild Boar Bridegroom
Category: Pig
The Myth
Inoshishi Muko, meaning “Boar Son-in-Law,” is a wild boar that appears as a supernatural bridegroom in Japanese folktales from the Chūgoku and Shikoku regions. These stories belong to the broader “monkey son-in-law” type of folktale, in which an animal demands a human daughter in exchange for helping her family. The boar typically offers to improve farmland or remove obstacles from agricultural land, expecting the old man’s daughter as its reward.
In a tale from Shikinobu Village in Hiroshima Prefecture, an old man with three daughters struggles to cultivate a barren field. A boar offers to plow the land if the old man promises it one of his daughters. After the boar quickly turns over the soil with its snout, the old man agrees. When his two older daughters refuse to marry the animal, the youngest volunteers out of concern for her parents. She takes flint, a fire-starting device, and bundles of thatch with her when the boar comes to collect her. During the journey into the mountains, she secretly ignites the thatch on the boar’s back. The animal runs wildly and eventually dies in the fire, allowing the daughter to return safely to her family.
A similar tale from Shishijima Island in Kagawa Prefecture tells of a boar that demands a daughter in exchange for removing large stones that obstruct farming. As in the Hiroshima story, the daughter burns the boar to death using straw carried on its back. This ending resembles the Japanese folktale Kachi-kachi Yama, in which an animal is defeated through a trick involving fire. However, not every version ends with the boar’s death. In a story from Sera District in Hiroshima, the boar drinks from a pond after bringing his bride home and suddenly transforms into a handsome human man. The couple returns to the girl’s family, leaving her older sisters envious of her good fortune. This version emphasizes the lesson that children should listen to their parents, while the other versions focus on the youngest daughter’s cleverness in escaping a dangerous marriage.
Sources
“Inoshishimuko.” 新版TYZ 妖怪図鑑 (New TYZ Yokai Encyclopedia). https://tyz-yokai.blog.jp/archives/1073540291.html