Look Up! ──Until Monsters are created──

　There is a monster called "Rokurokubi", whose neck extends.

　The origin of this is said to be the monster "Miage-Nyudo", that is passed down in Niigata Prefecture.

　As someone was walking down a street, when one child monk came walking towards him.

（He's a cute little boy. ）

　As he continued forward, when he naturally approached the boy.

　Then he realized that the boy was not a small monk, but a rather tall monk.

（Oh, I thought he was a child, but it's an adult priest. ）

　With this in mind, he continues to approach. The monk looks much taller than usually adults.

（That monk is quite tall……）

　As he continued on, the monk grew taller and taller as the monk approached him.

　By the time it was right in front of him, the monk raised him head and was high enough to look up, when he bent down and sat on him butt, the larger monk in front of him had disappeared. It must have been a disguised fox or raccoon dog.

　The "Folk Tales" goes like this.

　It used to be a local folk tale, but with unprecedented monster boom in late Edo period, the Miage-Nyudo became one of nationwide monster.

（Someone though would definitely like to put on a spectacle that recreated the Miage-Nyudo.）

　That's what some promoters of the Edo period thought.

　In modern times, they can process balloons and the like pump air into them, and make things that grow huge all at once. Nowadays, it is possible to make it look three-dimensional with CG.

　During the Edo period, it was recreated to show the Miage-Nyudo to "Stretching its neck." when looking up as the Miage-Nyudo grows larger. The way it looks down from its stretched neck is reminiscent of the folk tales of the monk looking up.

　Originally, he was a "Nyudo (Male Monk)", so the Rokurokubi (Miage-Nyudo) is generally supposed to be a male. With the boom, it become women be especially beautiful women. When it comes to character stories, beautiful women are more popular, the look of a beautiful women filled with resentment arouses more fear than average strong-looking man.

　Similarly, beautiful women are standard for ghost paintings. Even today, many of the ghosts in horror movies are women especially beautiful women, which reflects the universal human psychology.

　Speaking of ghosts, their biggest characteristic is that they have "No Legs."

　This is said to be a style of Maruyama Oukyo who was a famous painter from the mid-Edo period.

　By blurring the feet, they can express feeling of "Springing from Afterlife." If they have legs, they look like a living human being, so it's not very impressive.

　There are still many "Ghost Paintings" left today which mainly works from the Edo period. It may seem like bad taste to display creepy ghost paintings, but there is a reason.

　During the Edo period, common people were thought that ghost paintings had the effect of "Warding off Evil Spirits" and "Repelling Thieves." The creepier and more powerful it is the better. In other words, the ghost paintings were a lucky item.

　By the way, what can we do to avoid being turned into a fox which is said to be the true identity of the Miage-Nyudo?

　It is said that it is better to "Put spit on our eyebrows."

　Also said that foxes count number of eyebrows of some person, when they finished counting, they deceive the people.

　If you spit on your eyebrows will get tangled together and you won't be able to count them properly, so you won't be fooled. From there, we usually saying "Spit on eyebrow" when it comes to doubts, the idiom was born.