Tradition / Region: Japanese Mythology
Alternate Names: Hachimangū no kannushi no musume Sato
Category: Mermaid
The Myth
In Hizen Province there once lived a girl named Sato, the daughter of the chief priest of a Hachiman shrine. When she was seventeen years old, she drowned in a large pond, and her body was never recovered. The villagers mourned her, and with time the story faded into memory.
Years later, on the twenty-sixth day of the second month in 1819, something strange occurred. The waters of the pond stirred, and Sato’s body rose from the depths.
She was no longer human.
Her form had become long and fish-like, covered in scales, with flippered limbs, a human face framed by long hair, and two horns upon her head. From her abdomen hung three shining jewels.
When people gathered in fear and wonder, she spoke:
“I am a messenger from the gods. For eight or nine years there will be a rich harvest. But after that, a great illness will come, and thirty to fifty out of every hundred people will die. Those who see my image will be spared from this calamity.”
As she finished speaking, the sky darkened. Black clouds gathered, rain fell in torrents, and the waters of the pond surged upward.
Then Sato rose into the sky and vanished.
Afterward, her likeness was copied and spread among the people, who kept her image as a charm against disease, remembering the drowned girl who returned from the water as a messenger of the gods.
Gallery
Sources
yokai.com contributors. (n.d.). Sato. In yokai.com, from https://yokai.com/sato/
Interpretive Lenses
Religious Readings
- Christian Ascetic Deep Dive
Philosophical Readings
- Nietzschean Deep Dive
Psychological Readings
- Jungian Deep Dive
Esoteric Deep Dive
- Hermetic Deep Dive
Political / Social Readings
- Marxist Deep Dive
Other
- How to Invite The Sato