Kudan

◆ The legend

A strange calf with the body of a cow and the face of a human. One day, the story goes, an ordinary cow in a village gives birth, and the calf has a human face. As soon as it is born, it speaks in human words about what is to come, and within a few days it dies. Its prophecies cover all sorts of things, from good harvests to epidemics to great events in the world, and it is said that a kudan's prophecy never misses.

Toward the end of the Edo period, rumors that a kudan had been born somewhere were printed on kawaraban, cheap one-page news sheets, and passed around. Some of these prints are said to have added a line like: paste this picture of the kudan in your house and you will escape misfortune. The place of birth differs from print to print, so rather than belonging to one spot, the kudan is a yokai that turned up wherever the rumors went.