Rōjinbi


The Rōjinbi or rōjin no hi is a kind of supernatural fire that appears in the Edo period bestiary Ehon Hyaku Monogatari.

Summary

The rōjinbi is a demonic flame that supposedly appears deep in the mountains on rainy nights on the boundary of Shinano Province and Tōtōmi Province. It is said to appear along with an elderly person, and cannot be extinguished by water but can be if beat with animal skins.
If, for instance, you come across a rōjinbi on a straight stretch of road, holding your footwear over your head will prompt it to veer off to another path. However, if you panic and try to run away, it will apparently pursue you indefinitely.
It is sometimes called 'tengu no miakashi' , but this actually means an onibi that a tengu has lit.
Senkyō ibun , by the late Edo period scholar Hirata Atsutane with the aid of a boy who apparently returned home safely after being abducted by tengu, claims that tengu eat fish and birds, but not other animals. Furthermore, according to the collection of writings known as Heisuiroku , somebody was once cooking meat in the mountains when a gigantic, seven shaku tall mountain priest appeared, but, despising the stench of roasting flesh, he disappeared again. The priest was assumed to be a tengu, and the tengu trait of hating beasts and meat as described in Senkyō ibun and Heisuiroku has been pointed out as being related to the rumour that rōjinbi can be put out with animal skins.