In the 16th volume, first half of the Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang of the Tang dynasty, volume 462 of the Taiping Guangji of Northern Song dynasty, the "night-going leisure woman" is a nocturnal strange … See more

The yokai ubume was conceived through various means of social and religious influence. During the late Medieval period of Japan, the attitudes surrounding motherhood started to change. Rather than the infant being considered a replication of the … See more

Tokugawa-era artists produced many images of ubume, usually represented as "naked from the waist up, wearing a red skirt and carrying a small baby."
Other illustrations of ubume are from Toriyama Sekien’s late-18th-century encyclopedia of … See more

1. ^ Bush (2001), p. 188
2. ^ Stone & Walter (2008), p. 191
3. ^ Joly (1908), p. 15
4. ^ 京極夏彦・多田克己編著 (2000). 妖怪図巻. 国書刊行会. pp. 151–152頁. ISBN 978-4-336-04187-6 See more

Originally the name for a kind of small sea fish, in Japanese folklore the term is now applied to the ghost of a woman who had died in childbirth, or … See more

Stories about ubume have been told in Japan since at least the 12th century.
The early 17th-century tale collection Konjaku hyaku monogatari hyoban says of the ubume: See more

• Harpy
• Konaki-jiji, a childlike yōkai that, like the ubume's bundled 'infant', grows heavier when carried and ultimately takes the form of a boulder.
• Myling, an example of a similar motif in Scandinavian folklore. See more