The Ogre of Rashomon: Magical Creatures, A Weiser Books Collection

By Yei Theodora Ozaki and Varla Ventura

Varla Ventura, fan favorite on Huffington Post’s Weird News, frequent guest on Coast to Coast, and bestselling author of The Book of the Bizarre and Beyond Bizarre, introduces a new Weiser Books Collection of forgotten crypto-classics. Magical Creatures is a hair-raising herd of affordable digital editions, curated with Varla’s affectionate and unerring eye for the fantastic.

The warrior's sword and the village heroes are no match for the ogres and goblins that gnash their teeth and wreck havoc in early 20th century Japan.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Red Wheel Weiser
• Release date: Jul 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781619400955

Book preview

The Ogre of Rashomon and Other Japanese Fairy Tales

Yei Theodora Ozaki

Varla Ventura

Magical Creatures

A Weiser Books Collection

This ebook edition first published in 2012 by Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC.

With offices at:

665 Third Street, Suite 400

San Francisco, CA 94107

www.redwheelweiser.com

Copyright © 2012 by Red Wheel/Weiser LLC. All rights reserved.

Excerpted from Japanese Fairy Tales by Yei Theodora Ozaki, 1908.

eISBN: 978-1-61940-095-5

Cover design by Jim Warner

Contents

Ogres Are Like Onions by Varla Ventura

THE OGRE OF RASHOMON.

THE GOBLIN OF ADACHIGAHARA.

Ogres Are Like Onions

Before Shrek came along, ogres were not such lovable creatures. It was commonly known that ogres were mean, nasty beasts who spent most of their contact with humans devouring them for supper. They gnashed their horrible teeth and guzzled the blood of their captives—generally the poor people of whatever village or hamlet lay in their way. Ah, the good ol' days! Back then the fear factor in the hearts of the populace wasn't a foreboding of terrorism or bombings or random public attacks. It was a fear of the dark, the underbelly, the things that lurked beneath bridges and in the woods.

Born in 1872, Yei Theodora Ozaki was a fearless woman herself. A collector and translator of Japanese folklore, a world traveler, and a woman of fierce independent spirit, she was born