Nue

Here’s my take on the Nue (pronounced "noo-ay"), an enigmatic chimerical yokai, whose most notable appearance is found in the prose epic Heike Monogatari (the "Tale of the Heike"), collected from oral tradition in the 13th century. This story, even if it mainly talks about the War between the Taira and Minamoto clans for the control of Japan at the end of the 12th century, also involves supernatural forces, with the Nue among those. But other sources, sometimes prior to this work, also mention this nocturnal creature, we will come back to this.

The Heike Monogatari, therefore, described it as a chimera, adorned with the head of a monkey, the limbs of a tiger, the body of a raccoon dog, and a snake for a tail ; also, its strange shrill cries evoked the song of the scaly thrush, a bird seen as a bad omen by the Japanese of old. During the summer of 1153, a strange cloud, black, foul-smelling and stormy, began to dwell every night around the Kyoto palace, where Emperor Konoe resided. The behavior of this mass, and the disturbing cries that escaped from it, struck the master of the place with terror. The emperor even ended up falling ill, and no remedy, no prayer could change anything. Several days passed, until a terrible storm broke out above the palace in the middle of the night. As the roof of the building began to catch fire, the emperor summoned the legendary samurai Minamoto no Yorimasa, who also happened to be a very skilled archer, to deal with the thing hidden in this cursed cloud. The warrior aimed at the dark mass, and shot an arrow at it ; a terrible scream was heard, and the Nue fell from the sky. When the monster landed on the ground, Ino Hayata (Yorimasa's servant) jumped on it, and gave it the finishing blow. Almost immediately, the climate became mild again, and the emperor recovered. The latter, to reward the samurai and his servant, gave them the legendary katana, Shisiō.
The inhabitants of Kyoto, fearing to suffer the curse of the deceased yokai, had its body placed in a boat, which they let drift on the Kamo River. The boat ended up washing up at the intersection of two other rivers, near Osaka Bay. The locals religiously buried the strange creature, and built a memorial mound over its grave, called Nuezuka, which can still be seen today. Several legends mention that, in later periods, the Nue's tomb was destroyed, and/or its corpse exhumed, resulting in a terrible curse, which only ceased when everything was put back in order.
Another legend, typical of the city of Kumakogen, says that originally, the monster described by the Heike Monogatari was the mother of Minamoto no Yorimasa. In front of a dragon (guardian of a pond near which she lived), she wished that her son would distinguish himself by a heroic act, in order to revive his clan, then endangered by the Taira clan. She then found herself changed into a monster mounted on a cloud, and left for Kyoto. She therefore ended up slayed, by the hand of Yorimasa and her servant, who became heroes...

However, other appearances of the Nue were attested (sometimes prior to the events described above), notably in the Yokai Shutsugen Nenpyo (the "Chronology of the appearances of yokai"). Most of the time, it simply cried out into the sky before disappearing, but in one, in April 1416, it manifested itself in a sanctuary, before being killed by a servant ; but this Nue had nothing to do with the one killed by Yorimasa, because it had the head of a cat and the body of a chicken... In addition, an extended version of the Heike Monogatari, the Genpei jōsuiki ("The Rise and fall of the Genpei era"), the same monster is adorned with the head of a cat, the legs of a raccoon dog, the back of a tiger, the belly of a chicken, and the tail of a fox...
It's also good to know that the term “Nue” doesn't even have a precise meaning, the kanji in question evoking "night" and "bird". And until the Heike Monogatari, the Nue was, in truth, perceived more as a bird, close to the scaly thrush. According to researchers, there was confusion between the chimeric yokai itself, and the pre-existing being which shared the same disturbing cries. This could explain why different chimeras (without proper names, apparently) ended up bearing the name of the creature whose cry they uttered. But over time and abuse of language, the word “Nue” came to mean any strange and elusive being, or even any person with suspicious looks and behavior...