Mushroom

Namakubitake

by

Tradition / Region: Japanese Mythology
Alternate Names: Flesh Head Mushroom
Category: Plant, Mushroom

The Myth

At the Teranishi Shimodai residence there once stood a mound with a troubling story behind it. The tale began generations earlier, in the time of the monk Wakasa Nyūdō Sōkan.

One night, a strange and foul odor suddenly filled the monk’s sleeping chamber. He searched carefully through the room but could find nothing that might explain it. At last he looked upward and saw, resting against the ceiling, something impossible — the severed head of a young boy.

The head appeared to belong to a refined youth of fourteen or fifteen years. Its face looked fresh and lifelike, wearing a faint smile that made the sight even more unsettling. No one could explain where it had come from, and nothing else in the house seemed disturbed.

Unsure what else to do, the household buried the head in a corner of the estate grounds. Over the spot they raised a small mound and planted a tree to mark it.

Years passed.

Then, one autumn morning during the Hōreki era, as white dew lay thick on the ground, something unusual appeared on the mound. A mushroom had pushed its way up through the earth.

Its shape was elegant, somewhat like a reishi mushroom. Yet its stalk forked in an odd way, and when it was split open, people saw that the surface bore the likeness of a boy’s face. Eyes, ears, nose, and mouth all seemed formed in the flesh of the fungus, as if the earth had remembered what lay buried beneath it.

No one knew what the mushroom truly was or how it came to grow there. The strange fungus remained a mystery, and the mound where it appeared was remembered thereafter as a place where something buried had returned in another form.

Gallery

Sources

Tyz-Yokai Blog. (n.d.). Namakubitake. Retrieved March 1, 2026, from https://tyz-yokai.blog.jp/archives/1013072021.html

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Matsutake-bakemono

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Tradition / Region: Japanese Mythology
Alternate Names: Matsutake Monster
Category: Plant, mushroom

The Myth

Long ago, on a distant place known as Dwarf Island, there lived tiny creatures skilled in transformation. Yet they grew bored of practicing their tricks in a land where nothing seemed new. Wanting to improve their powers, they decided to travel to Japan, where many famous spirits and monsters were said to live.

They hid themselves inside a hollow in the mast of a great ship and at last reached Osaka. When they stepped ashore, they were stunned by what they saw. Everything was enormous — the houses, the streets, and above all the people. Still, they did not abandon their plan.

They journeyed to Mount Yoshino, hoping to learn from well-known monsters there. They sought out Imohoribo of Mount Imoyama and Semushibo of Mount Seyama, but the two only laughed at them. Mocking their small size, they joked that the little creatures should crawl into their ears and clean out the dirt. Ashamed and discouraged, the travelers left.

They went on to visit other famous beings, including a monster of Saga and the mighty Fuji Daitahoshi. Yet everywhere they went, their size made them seem insignificant, and they could only flee from the towering figures they met.

At last they reached Miho no Matsubara. There, from the forest floor, appeared a strange being — a Matsutake-bakemono, a monster in the form of a matsutake mushroom. It called out, “Who am I? I am only a small thing.”

Hearing this, the tiny travelers explained their journey. The matsutake monster welcomed them kindly and told them that being small could be an advantage, since people would not easily fear them. It gave them careful directions toward Mount Hakone and urged them to continue their training.

But when they arrived in Hakone, the monster there refused to take them as students. Instead, it warned them that their fate in Japan was uncertain and advised them to return home while they still could.

Before leaving, the little creatures went down to Edo, hoping at least to frighten the townspeople and prove their abilities. Yet their plan failed. Their bodies were so small that people treated them like toys, picking them up and playing with them. After being handled and tossed about, they were finally captured.

In the end, the tiny monsters saw a painted crane by the artist Sesshū and, believing it to be real, were so startled that they vanished completely, disappearing without a trace. Thus their journey ended, remembered only as a curious tale of wandering spirits and the small mushroom monster who alone had treated them with kindness.

Gallery

Sources

Tyz-Yokai Blog. (n.d.). Matsutake-bakemono. Retrieved March 1, 2026, from https://tyz-yokai.blog.jp/archives/1013072024.html

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Ghost Shimeji

by

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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