Carp

Terutou

by

Tradition / Region: Japanese Mythology
Alternate Names: Terukagoyo; Terikabugyo-san (local name of the sacred carp)
Category: Mermaid, Carp

The Myth

In the year 1646, a kind man named Otani Jinnai lived in Matsue with his wife Oryo. The couple longed for a child, and after many years of disappointment they prayed at temples and shrines throughout the land. At last they heard that Ogamiyama Shrine on Mount Oyama in Izumo was famed for granting children, and so they climbed the mountain to pray there.

As they descended, a thick fog suddenly swallowed the path. Out of the mist appeared a beautiful young woman who guided the lost couple safely down the trail. When she learned they had prayed for a child, she handed Jinnai a small bottle of water. She explained that it was sacred water made from dew gathered near Akamatsu Pond and offered at the shrine on New Year’s Day, and that drinking it would surely bring them the blessing they sought. Oryo drank it at once, feeling a strange certainty that their wish would be fulfilled. When they looked again, the girl had vanished.

The following year, Oryo gave birth to a daughter. The child was named O-Chiyo, and she grew into a girl of uncommon beauty and intelligence. When she reached sixteen, Jinnai’s nephew Tamaki asked for her hand in marriage. Though O-Chiyo felt troubled and uncertain, she could not bring herself to refuse her parents, and the engagement was arranged.

Before the wedding date was set, O-Chiyo made a request. She wished to visit Ogamiyama Shrine once more to report her coming marriage to the gods. Her parents agreed, and she set out for Mount Oyama with her nurse, Osuma. After offering her prayers at the shrine, the two began their return journey and passed by Akamatsu Pond—the very place where the mysterious girl had once given Jinnai the sacred water.

O-Chiyo stood gazing into the water for a long time. Then she walked to the edge and bent down. Suddenly steam rose from the pond, and her expression grew grave. She turned to Osuma, thanked her gently, and spoke in a calm voice. She said that although she had lived as a human, it had only been a temporary form. In truth she was a carp of that region, and the pond was her real home.

She gave Osuma a letter for her parents and words of gratitude, then leapt into the water and vanished. As Osuma cried out in shock, a huge golden carp surged to the surface. The creature turned toward her, and its face was unmistakably that of O-Chiyo. Overcome, Osuma fell to her knees in prayer as the carp slipped back beneath the water.

When Osuma returned and told Jinnai and Oryo what had happened, they were filled with grief. In the letter, O-Chiyo explained that she was the sacred carp Terukagoyo and could never marry a human. She thanked them for raising her and said that if they ever wished to see her, they need only call her name by the pond.

Jinnai remembered hearing of a sacred carp said to dwell in Akamatsu Pond, and he realized that the gods of Mount Oyama had given that spirit to him as a daughter. He built a small shrine and placed O-Chiyo’s letter there. Soon after, he and his family went to the pond and called her name three times from the shore. A thunderous roar answered from beneath the water, but she did not appear.

From that time on, visitors to the pond began calling the carp’s name in the same way. The shrine became a place where young men and women prayed for blessings in love, and in the region the carp themselves came to be respectfully called Terikabugyo-san.

Gallery

Sources

tyz-yokai.blog.jp contributors. (n.d.). Terutou. In tyz-yokai.blog.jp, from https://tyz-yokai.blog.jp/archives/1077741621.html

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Tomoe

by

Tradition / Region: Japanese Mythology
Alternate Names: —
Category: Fish, Carp, Yokai

The Myth

In Kawachi Province there lies a deep pool known as Uchisuke-ga-fuchi, whose waters were said never to dry. On its bank lived a fisherman named Uchisuke, a solitary man who made his living by catching carp.

One day, Uchisuke caught a female carp of uncommon dignity, marked by patterns unlike any he had seen before. Instead of selling it, he kept the fish. As years passed, a tomoe crest appeared upon its scales, and the carp grew strangely attached to him. It began to respond when called by name, lingered near him like a companion, and in time even left the water to sleep in his house and share his meals.

For eighteen years Uchisuke kept the carp in a tank. By then it had grown to the size of a young girl of fourteen or fifteen.

At last, Uchisuke married. One night, while he was away fishing, a beautiful woman wearing a pale blue kimono patterned with rising waves burst into the house. She spoke to the new wife with fury, saying that she had known Uchisuke for many years and was even carrying his child. Burning with resentment at being cast aside, she ordered the wife to return to her parents’ home at once, warning that if she did not, a great wave would rise within three days and drag the house into the pond.

Terrified, the wife fled and told Uchisuke what she had seen. He laughed it off, saying that such a woman could never have desired him, and that it must have been an illusion. As dusk fell, he returned to the pond in his boat.

Suddenly the water surged. Seaweed parted, and a massive carp leapt into the boat. From its mouth it spat out a small being shaped like a human child, with hair upon its head, yet with scales upon its body. Then the carp plunged back into the depths and vanished.

Uchisuke fled in terror. When he returned home and looked into the fish tank, Tomoe was gone.

After this, the villagers spoke among themselves and said, “In all things, it is not good for humans to keep living creatures too close to them.”

Gallery

Sources

TYZ-Yokai Blog contributors. (n.d.). 巴御前 (Tomoe). In TYZ-Yokai Blog, from https://tyz-yokai.blog.jp/archives/1010655112.html

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Wenyao Fish

by

Tradition / Region: Chinese mythology
Alternate Names: —
Category: Fish

The Myth

In the far western lands, at Mount Taiqi where the Guan River is born, there lives a strange fish known as the Wenyao. The river flows westward into the drifting sands, and within these waters the Wenyao make their home.

The Wenyao resembles a carp in shape, yet from its body grow wings like those of a bird. Blue-green patterns flow across its scales, its head is white as bone, and its mouth is red like fresh lacquer. By day it swims through rivers and seas; by night it takes to the air, flying between the Western Sea and the Eastern Sea.

When the Wenyao cries out, its voice is like that of a phoenix calling across the sky. Its flesh is sour and sweet to the taste, and those who eat it are cured of madness and falling sickness. It restores vital energy and replenishes the blood.

When Wenyao appear in abundance, it is taken as a sign that the year will be fruitful and the harvest great.

Gallery

Sources

Wikipedia contributors. (n.d.). 文魯魚. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, from https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%96%87%E9%B3%90%E9%B1%BC

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Senzanri

by

Tradition / Region: Japanese Mythology
Alternate Names: Thousand Mountain Carp
Category: Fish, Mountain dweller, Carp

The Myth

The Senzanri is a strange and transformative carp, said to be capable of leaving the water and becoming a creature of the mountains.

According to the story, a boy named Torakichi spoke of this being from his own experience. He said that when certain substances were mixed into water or shaped like fish and placed in old ponds, crucian carp would appear in great numbers. These carp were not ordinary fish. Among them were those that would later become Senzanri, carp that transform and give birth after leaving the water.

It is commonly said that carp climb waterfalls and become dragons, but Torakichi explained that this belief misunderstands what truly happens. The carp do not become dragons. Instead, using the force they gather while leaping up waterfalls, they launch themselves into the mountains. There, far from rivers and ponds, the transformation begins.

Once on land, the carp rolls about in grassy places. As time passes, its body becomes rounder and harder, forming a shell. Hair grows between its scales. Its fins change into four limbs, and the creature begins to crawl like a land animal. Though its shape changes, its inner body remains that of a carp.

In this form, the Senzanri lives in mountain pools, where it gives birth to offspring known as mountain-burrowing carp. These young inherit the strange nature of their parent, belonging neither fully to water nor to land.

The Senzanri is thus a creature that bridges worlds: born as a fish, transformed by the mountains, and living a life hidden from ordinary human sight.

Gallery

Sources

TYZ-Yokai Blog contributors. (n.d.). 雪女 (Yuki-onna). In TYZ-Yokai Blog, from https://tyz-yokai.blog.jp/archives/1010654386.html

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Red Carp

by

Tradition / Region: Chinese mythology
Category: Fish, Carp

The Myth

The Red Carp is a strange and unusual fish described in Chinese legend. It has the body of a fish but the face of a human, making it both familiar and unsettling in appearance. The creature is said to live in the Winged Marsh, a remote and mysterious wetland.

When the Red Carp cries out, its voice is said to resemble the call of a mandarin duck. Despite its uncanny form, the fish is associated with healing rather than danger. According to tradition, eating the Red Carp can cure scabies.

The Red Carp is recorded in the Classic of Mountains and Seas, specifically in the Southern Mountains Classic, where it appears as one of the many strange beings inhabiting distant and mythical landscapes.

Gallery

Sources

Wikipedia contributors. (n.d.). 赤鱬. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, from https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%B5%A4%E9%B1%AC

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