Japanese Urban Legends

Happyaku Bikuni

This is another Japanese folk tale, which teaches the very important lesson of not eating mermaids. There was a fisherman who caught a mermaid while out at sea. He took it home, cooked it, and invited many of his friends over to partake in the meal. But he didn't tell them what he was cooking, and one of the guests slipped into the kitchen and saw the fish he was butchering had a woman's face. He warned the other guests not to eat it, and they all slyly slipped their servings of fish into their pockets as they ate.

One man forgot to empty his pockets and throw away the fish, and when he returned home, his daughter asked for a treat. He had had too much sake, and, without thinking, gave her the fish. Everything was fine - until, years later, she realized she was no longer aging. The woman married several times, outliving all her husbands as they grew old and she did not. Eventually, the woman realized she could do a lot of good with all the extra time she had on Earth, and became a Buddhist nun. She dedicated her life to the cause, eventually rising through the ranks of the religion and giving this story its translated title: The Eight-Hundred-Year Buddhist Priestess.