Oni are not demons · Tale 4 of 6
A name from the old records, and a creature that fits it. The play is about what the name does. Raikō, who kills it, is a forebear of Yorimasa, the archer of the next tale.
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The warrior Minamoto no Raikō lies ill. His attendant Kochō brings medicine. At night a strange monk appears and throws countless threads over him.
Raikō cuts at the monk with his sword Hizamaru, and the monk vanishes. His retainers follow the traces of blood to an old burial mound. There they find the earth spider and kill it.
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The spider does have a voice. It announces who it is: “I am the spirit of the earth spider who lived long ago on Mount Katsuragi.” It is a statement of identity, made to the one it fights. It is not a memory or a plea. It names itself, and it is killed.
The human side hardly appears as a listener. Raikō and his men are the ones who fight and finish it. The play does not ask them to understand.
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In ancient chronicles such as the Nihon shoki, “tsuchigumo” was a word the state used for people who did not obey the court. Later it became a monster in tales, and later a monster on the Noh stage. These are three layers, and no direct line between the oldest and the Noh creature can be claimed. What the play does keep is the shape: someone outside the order is given a monstrous face and killed.
