Tengu

◆ The legend

A red face with a long, jutting nose, the robes of a mountain ascetic, and tall wooden clogs with a single tooth. Fan of feathers in hand, the tengu is said to fly from peak to peak on the wings on its back. A crash like a great tree falling deep in the mountains, or loud laughter from nowhere, was blamed on the tengu, and when a child went missing in the hills, people sometimes said the child had been "carried off by a tengu."

The word "tengu" first came from China, where it meant a star that streaks across the sky with a roar. In Japan it became the name for strange beings hiding in the mountains, and older pictures often show tengu with a bird-like beak. Yet tengu who had trained long and hard also came to be honored as guardians of the mountains, and sacred peaks said to be home to tengu, like Mount Kurama and Mount Atago in Kyoto, are found all over Japan.