Daily mythical creature 264: the Bake-Kujira [Japanese folklore; yokai]!

(image source: Matthew Meyer)

Japan is well known for having lots of folklore tales involving bizarre mythical creatures – or yokai – and the bake kujira is one of the most well known among them, though I don’t know how old the story actually is. Despite its apparent popularity among Japanese folklore fans, I failed to find any offline sources. Regardless, the creature is usually depicted as a large, skeletal baleen whale. According to a tale that is frequently shared on the internet, this creature once appeared before the coast of Okino island (in the Shimane prefecture) under the vision-obscuring veil of a pouring rainstorm.

A group of fisherman was watching it from ashore, thinking it was a strange and unknown kind of whale. When they decided to board a small vessel and get closer, one of the fishermen threw a harpoon at the creature, which passed right through the whale as if it was a ghost.

(image source: Julie Sakai)

When the rain cleared and the people finally got a good view of the monster, they saw it was a giant skeleton of a dead whale, magically animated as though it was alive. When they looked around, they saw schools of strange fish and flocks of bizarre birds, none of which they had ever seen before. In the distance, they could spot an island that, by all accounts, had not been there before. But then the bake kujira left and the strange visions disappeared with it.

Depending on who you ask, the village was plagued by a series of misfortunes and plagues after the appearance of the skeletal creature. This is supposedly the curse that the whale spirit inflicted upon the people.

Sources:
https://hyakumonogatari.com/2013/05/10/bakekujira-and-japans-whale-cults/
https://yokai.com/bakekujira/