A Resident Of Japan Told How He Saw The Legendary River Monster Kappa

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Video: A Resident Of Japan Told How He Saw The Legendary River Monster Kappa

Video: A Resident Of Japan Told How He Saw The Legendary River Monster Kappa
Video: Kappa The Japanese River Monster - (Japanese Folklore Explained) 2024, March
A Resident Of Japan Told How He Saw The Legendary River Monster Kappa
A Resident Of Japan Told How He Saw The Legendary River Monster Kappa
Anonim

Sometimes kappa are portrayed simply as mischievous creatures, but more often as something vicious and prone to bloody violence. They love to attack lonely travelers who come to the river to quench their thirst, as well as bathers whom they drag under the water

A resident of Japan told how he saw the legendary river monster Kappa - kappa, Japan, river, water, mythology, cryptid
A resident of Japan told how he saw the legendary river monster Kappa - kappa, Japan, river, water, mythology, cryptid

The rivers and lakes of Japan have long been known as a haven for a variety of mythical creatures, the most popular of which was the Kappa.

In appearance, the kappa is immediately similar to a person (or a monkey), a reptile and a turtle. He walks on two legs and is recognized by many not as a character in fairy tales, but as a real being - that is, a cryptid.

The details of the appearance of the mouthguard vary depending on the time of observation and the specific area, but there are some basic features: it is the size of a 6-10 year old child, there is a tortoise-like shell on the back, there are membranes between the fingers and toes, and the mouth looks more like a turtle beak, sometimes filled with sharp teeth.

A mouthguard usually has a head of hair on its head, but there is often a round receding hairline on the crown of the head, supposedly containing some kind of liquid, which gives the mouthguard many supernatural powers. It is sometimes mentioned that the entire body of the mouthguard is covered with hair from head to toe.

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Sometimes kappa are portrayed simply as mischievous creatures, but more often as something vicious and prone to bloody violence. They love to attack lonely travelers who come to the river to quench their thirst, as well as bathers whom they drag under the water and draw out their life force.

There are also creepy stories that a kappa can attack a person and with his clawed hands pull out the insides from him through the anus.

In some parts of Japan, kappa were considered a creature that could help people, they were considered good healers and knew how to heal wounds and diseases. It is also believed that kappa loves cucumbers and therefore many travelers in the old days carried cucumbers with them in order to appease kappa with them on occasion.

All this sounds very interesting, of course, but it looks more like fairy tales and legends than something real. However, sometimes there were eyewitnesses who claimed that they had personally seen the kappa. Including one such case recently told by a researcher of anomalous phenomena Brent Swanserliving in Japan.

The eyewitness asked not to disclose his name (we will call him Taro), as well as the place where it all happened, mentioning only that it was a small village near the river. The house of the eyewitness was located not far from the coast.

One day, Taro's 10-year-old son returned from a walk in the evening very excited. He ran into the house and began to tell his father that he saw a strange figure near the water, which was without clothes and had green skin and "a face like a frog."

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This figure stood on a stone on the shore, and then jumped from the stone into the water and disappeared from view. The boy came closer and saw that the stone was covered in wet spots, that is, it looked like something was actually climbing out of the water on him.

The boy did not see anything unusual next to the stone, there were no strange footprints on the shore, but he was sure that it did not seem to him.

Taro listened to him, and then went to the river himself to see what was there. He, too, did not find traces and saw only a wet stone, after which he told his son that he simply imagined something in the dark.

However, the story did not end there.

The following weekend, Taro went to the riverbank to go fishing, as he did almost every weekend. It was a warm, clear day that seemed good for fishing, so he quickly managed to catch a few fish and put them in the bucket he had with him.

Not far from him there was a creek and he thought that maybe there are bigger fish, so he went there and threw a fishing rod. He left his things and a bucket of fish in the same place.

It was a very rural area where there was no one else but him, so he relaxed and just sat and listened to the sounds of the countryside, insects, birds and the buzzing of cicadas.

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Suddenly he heard another sound and he was very surprised, as it seemed very inappropriate here. It sounded like an unusually loud croak at first, followed by what sounded like a deep coughing, and sounded like it was coming from where Taro had left his belongings.

At first I didn't see anything, and then I heard that croaking again, this time louder and not like what I had heard before. I began to return to see what was there. That's when I saw it. He slowly crawled out of the water., and I was shocked by what I saw.

He was short, childlike, with shiny greenish skin, not scaly, but perhaps more rubbery. He had a rounded body with a belly and long, muscular arms that ended in huge webbed palms. At first I did not see my legs.

His muzzle was, as my son said, like that of a frog, only elongated, like a dog's. It had no ears that I could see and had two holes in its muzzle that appeared to be nostrils. The mouth was exceptionally wide and the eyes were very large and round. The creature was looking directly at me.

It wheezed something again, and this, I now think, was a warning to me. I stopped rooted to the spot. The creature then slowly crawled out of the water on two long tapering legs, but one of the legs appeared to be wounded as it seemed to be limping.

It walked right up to my fish bucket and stared at it with its large eyes, then looked at me again to croak again before climbing into the bucket to grab one of my fish, which he popped into his mouth. Then he took the second fish.

After that, he croaked for the last time and jumped into the water to disappear. I soon realized that I knew exactly what I saw. It was a kappa, said Taro.

Then Taro examined the place where it was, and saw on the sand strange footprints with webbed paws, not like the footprints of those animals that live here.

After that, Taro or his son never saw the kappa again, as if he had disappeared for good. There is a sad assumption that since the kappa was injured and one of his legs did not work well, he could not normally catch his prey in the river, so he used fish from the fisherman's bucket. And then he probably died.

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