Hachishakusama

Hachishakusama is a ghostly/demonic entity of the modern Japanese urban legends (her origin is relatively recent, since she comes from the year 2008).

Etymology
It is said that Hachishakusama means, in generous translations, something like "the (respectable) lady 8 feet tall", where Hachi is number 8, Shaku refers to an old unit of Japanese length -about 2.5-3 meters-, and Sama is like "lady", used as a title of respect.

Myth
Super Curioso summarizes the story as follows:

In the online versions, a young man of approximately 18 or 20 years old talks about his own story and his encounter with this lady that occurred when he was barely 8 years old.

According to the story, his parents every summer took him to his grandparents' house, in a rural town in Japan, where he felt loved and free from urban pressures.

A hot afternoon, while he was resting on the lawn of the yard, heard a strange sound; it was difficult to locate the origin and curious looked around. The sound was of a male voice and deep, and said something like "po po ... po po ... po po ...", as if someone was talking to himself.

The boy suddenly saw, above the tall hedges that lined the back wall, a woman's hat, and realized that the sound was coming from there, and that the hat was moving. The boy thought it strange that someone could be so tall, especially a woman, who could see because she stopped in front of branches that made a hole, and through it he could observe her. But for a short time, because at once she vanished, and with her the unusual sound.

Upon returning to the house, he found his grandparents having tea in the kitchen, and told them what he had seen. They were not particularly attentive to the story of the grandson, but when he mentioned the extravagant height of that woman and the sound she made, the two became deathly pale and the grandmother restrained a cry, his grandfather, with a very serious face he took him by the arm and made him repeat how tall he was, and all the details: where he was, when it happened, what he did and what he saw exactly.

The old man rushed out of the kitchen and telephoned someone from the hall, and when they were alone, the boy, very frightened, saw that his grandmother trembled with fear; Grandfather came back and asked her to stay with the boy, he had to leave for a moment, and not to take his eyes off her. When the grandson asked him, crying, what happened, the gentleman answered with sadness: "You have liked Hachishakusama".

It is supposed to be a kind of ghost, a being that seeks children to take advantage of them because they are easier to cheat; thus, when a child "likes" Hachishakusama, he is condemned to die, since this spirit will abduct him and will never be known about him again.

In the story that concerns us, the grandfather went in search of a witch, able to confront Hachishakusama, who orders the child to be in his room, locked with a key, and not leave there under any circumstances.



Before, he brought four bowls of salt, which he placed in the four corners of the room, and an image of Buddha before which he should pray if he felt fear; he also left a bucket for his needs, since he could not go to the bathroom all night, until 7 o'clock the next morning. Also, the witch gave him a piece of parchment, with the precise instruction to have it in his hand all the time.

Yes, the child had to spend the night completely alone, listening through the window strange sounds and the already known "po po ... po po po ... po po ...", which announced the arrival of Hachishakusama.

He suddenly heard his grandfather's voice asking him how he felt, and that if he was afraid he should only open the door... the boy was already opening when he remembered what the witch told him, and died of fear he knelt in front of the Buddha and he prayed, prayed and prayed, terrified and weeping, he also noticed that the salt in the bowls was getting dark.

That night was almost eternal, and the pounding of the window did not yield. When the day finally arrived, the salt was completely black. He saw the clock and knew he could get out; his grandparents cried with happiness at seeing him healthy and alive, and his parents, who had rushed back the night before, embraced him. The grandfather, without delay, took them all out of the house, and they put him in a van of 9 posts, in the middle of 8 men of the town; the witch drove.

Sitting among those men, all his relatives, told him that although he had serious problems, he should only keep his head down and his eyes closed, for only he could see Hachishakusama. But it is enough that one is told to close your eyes to open them, right? And it was what the boy did, he kept his head down but saw him glancing out the window, and there she was, floating beside the truck in her white dress, and suddenly the woman put her face to the window. The boy shouted and ordered him to close his eyes, which he did in addition to wringing the parchment of the previous night in his hands. Po po, po po po, po po !, and felt the pounding throughout the truck. The others could not see it or hear the chilling sound, but they could hear when it rattled on the body or the windows. K-san, that's the name of the witch, began to pray so loud that her prayer became a scream, but after a while, the voice and the pounding vanished.

The legend says that Hachishakusama had been locked in 4 "jizo", small statues that would contain it, but that one of them was broken and thus could escape.

When Hachishakusama sees a child and likes him, she usually kidnaps him, but if he survives he will never be able to return to his homeland, at the risk that the ghost will snatch him back and finish what he left unfinished.

Trivia

 * This character appears in the video game Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water, in this gameplay.
 * She is usually compared to Slenderman, since both are tall, white as snow and appear mysteriously.
 * She made an appearance in two chapters of the animated hentai "Toshi Densetsu Series".