Among the youkai sculptures in Fukusaki, the pair of kappa brothers, Gataro and Gajiro, are special.
Kappa is a species of youkai living in the water, feared because they were believed to attack people.
The story of the two kappa brothers says that they used to attack children on the shores of the Ichikawa river in Fukusaki town. After a while, the children stopped passing next to the river and the two kappa remained alone and begun to regret their evil actions. So, they went to the house of the professor Yanagita Kunio (the writer who created all these beautiful youkai stories) wanting to apologize.
But because in the meantime the professor died, they waited years and years, Gajiro in the lake next to the house and Gataro on the shore. Gataro lost the water on his head, thus loosing his kappa power and transforming into a stone, while Gataro is still in the lake, and can be seen in Fukusaki surfacing from time to time…
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Yesterday’s Japan Photo:Maruoka castle |
