Yomotsu-shikome

Region/Culture: Japan, Asia
Mythos: Japanese Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Demons and Devils
Mythical Attributes: Underworld hags possessed of supernatural pursuit speed, said by some accounts to leap vast distances in a single bound, and immediately captivated by food set in their path.
Role in Mythos: Sent by Izanami from Yomi to pursue her fleeing husband Izanagi after he broke his promise not to look upon her decayed body.
Relation to Humans: Yomotsu-shikome do not normally cross into the world of the living, since the slope between the realms was sealed by a great boulder at the close of the founding myth. Their threat falls instead on anyone who ventures into Yomi and tries to leave.

When Izanami caught her husband looking at what death had done to her, she sent the hags. They came up the slope of Yomi at a speed nothing living could match, hair streaming, mouths open, their hunger already half their reason for being. Behind them, in the dark, Izanami waited to see what they would bring back.

The trouble had started in childbed. Izanami had borne Kagutsuchi, the fire god, and the birth burned her so badly that she died of it. Her husband Izanagi went down through the dim country to find her. He found her, and she told him to wait for her, and not to look. He could not stand the wait. He broke a tooth from the comb in his hair and lit it for a torch and stepped into the chamber and saw. Her body was full of maggots. Her head and chest and stomach were scorched dark, and eight thunder gods had taken up residence on her body. She caught him looking. The shame of being seen like that became fury, and the fury wore his name.

Their name in the oldest book is Yomotsu-shikome, “ugly woman of Yomi,” though the texts cannot quite agree on the count. The Kojiki names a single hag. The Nihon Shoki sometimes calls her Yomotsu-hisame, sometimes mentions eight, and sometimes speaks of a whole crowd. The truth probably runs simpler than the discrepancy suggests: the name was a category and a category can hold one or eight or as many as the moment required.

The texts are oddly thrifty about what these hags actually look like. The Kojiki is famous for naming things and not describing them, and on this point it keeps to form. Later folklore would fill in the silence with claws and patches of fur and long black hair and the heavy white makeup of court ladies turned grotesque, but the early chronicles let the chase do the describing. Their ugliness is functional. They are shame given hands and feet.

The chase itself is one of the great runs in world mythology. Izanagi pulled the black vine from his hair and threw it behind him, and where it fell it sprouted into a tangle of wild mountain grapes, the dark ones that stain the mouth purple. The hag stopped to eat. He ran. She finished the grapes faster than he had hoped and was on him again. He broke another tooth from his comb and threw that, and where it landed bamboo shot up green and tender, and again she stopped to dig and eat. Each delay was paid for in distance. The whole sequence has the rhythm of a folktale and the strange domestic detail of someone shedding household objects to save his life.

Then it got worse. Izanami sent the eight thunder gods after him, and behind them an army of fifteen hundred underworld warriors, and Izanagi drew his ten-grasp sword and ran with it swinging in great backward arcs. The slope of Yomotsu Hirasaka rose ahead. At its foot grew a peach tree. He pulled three peaches from it and turned and threw them at his pursuers, and the gods of thunder and the army of fifteen hundred all broke and fled back into the dark. He thanked the peaches and gave them a divine name. Peaches in the islands have warded off evil ever since, which is one of the small jobs old myths quietly do.

Izanami came last, alone, and reached the slope just as he reached the top. He found a boulder so large it would take a thousand men to move, and he set it across the pass. They spoke through the stone. She told him she would kill a thousand of his people every day. He told her he would build fifteen hundred birthing huts to outpace her. That is how the world got the count it has, and how the dead were sealed off from the living, and the marriage of the gods who made the islands ended with a rock between them.

What the hags can do is plain. They run. They run faster than anything human or divine ought to be able to, leaping country in a single bound by some accounts, and they do not tire. They obey without being told twice. They are the will of Yomi turned outward, sent across the threshold into a world that does not normally have to deal with the dead at all.

What stops them is the same thing that built Yomi to begin with. The eating. Izanami was bound to the underworld because she ate its food. The hags are bound to chase, but they are also bound to stop and feed on whatever drops in front of them, which is the same hunger by another door. The objects that distracted them were not weapons. A vine, a comb tooth, a tree’s worth of fruit. The hags want to eat more than they want to catch. The boundary of Yomi, when found, is held closed by a stone, by a peach, and by the simple fact that the dead cannot stop wanting what they cannot have.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Yomotsu-shikome?

Yomotsu-shikome is a witch-like demon from Japanese mythology, appearing in Shinto and Yokai traditions. She was created to pursue those who try to escape Yomi, the Japanese underworld. Yomotsu-shikome embodies decay and malevolence, and serves as an antagonist to gods and humans alike.

Why was Yomotsu-shikome created?

Yomotsu-shikome was fashioned for a single sinister purpose: to stop the god Izanagi from escaping the depths of Yomi. She was not born but created specifically for this task, and she fulfills it with terrifying efficiency, pursuing anyone who attempts to flee the underworld.

What does Yomotsu-shikome look like?

Yomotsu-shikome appears as a hideous hag with wild, unkempt hair, teeth rotting and jagged as if corroded by decay, and long claw-like nails suited to her malevolent deeds. Her grotesque form is a direct manifestation of her nature, embodying the underworld she is bound to.

What powers does Yomotsu-shikome have?

Yomotsu-shikome’s presence corrupts the air around her, turning it heavy with the scent of decay. She can manipulate shadows, using them as extensions of herself to ensnare those who try to defy her or flee Yomi. Her shrieks disorient her prey, leaving them vulnerable to her relentless intent.

What are Yomotsu-shikome’s weaknesses?

Yomotsu-shikome’s powers are tied to the underworld and weaken the farther she strays from Yomi. In the land of the living she is less potent, and her dominion over decay loses its absoluteness. Her single-minded focus on her pursuit can also be exploited, as clever foes can outwit her by turning her relentless chase against her.