Tradition / Region: Japanese Mythology
Alternate Names: Tenshin Dōsai; Shindōsai
Category: Fish
The Myth
One night, during the Ansei era, a wandering rōnin arrived at a guardhouse in Edo and begged for shelter and food. He was tall, powerfully built, and strange in appearance, like a man hardened by severe training. The guards refused him, saying the guardhouse was not a place for lodging, and told him to seek an inn elsewhere.
At this, the man’s face grew pale.
He declared, “I am Tenchishindousai. There is none who does not know my name. Yet because the land has been calm for many years, people have grown contemptuous. They catch my kin, roast them, stew them, and kill them without cause. I have come to avenge them.”
He spoke of his journey: how he had shaken people to death at temple gatherings, how he had passed through province after province—mountains, capitals, and ports—causing the earth to tremble beneath his feet. Now, he said, he had arrived in Edo.
When the guards realized he claimed to be the Earthquake itself, they tried to seize him. Enraged, Tenchishindousai vanished on the spot.
At once, heaven and earth roared. The ground convulsed violently. Houses collapsed, storehouses fell, fires erupted across the city, and countless people were crushed or burned. Amid the devastation, Tenchishindousai spoke again, saying that the gods were absent from the land—and that if the deity who pins the earth were to arrive, the destruction would grow even greater.
With that, he fled north.
Those who saw his true form said his face was that of a giant catfish, the ancient creature that writhes beneath the land and shakes the world when angered. Thus the people believed the great earthquake was not chance, but revenge—carried out by Tenchishindousai, the living will of the trembling earth.
Sources
TYZ-Yokai Blog contributors. (n.d.). 添地震大歳 (Tenchishindōsai). In TYZ-Yokai Blog, from https://tyz-yokai.blog.jp/archives/1069000650.html
