The Oni on His Travels

The Oni on His Travels

Old Japanese tales speak of oni—strange fairy creatures who enjoy noise, unexpected jokes, and being in places where they absolutely should not be.

If a pot lid clinked all by itself in the kitchen, someone might smile and say, “An oni must have run past.”

If a box fell in the pantry although no one had touched it, someone might say, “An oni is playing tricks again.”

Of course, sometimes a box had simply been placed crookedly. But a fairy tale is a fairy tale, and one day a young oni truly did climb into a place where no one had invited him.

It happened in a port city. In a large warehouse, people were packing things for a long sea journey: lacquered chests, porcelain cups, silk fabrics, tea, fans, and other finely made treasures.

The oni peeked through the door.

“If only I could have one little look,” he whispered.

Then he took a step.

“If only I could walk around one box.”

A minute later he was trying on a silk belt, turning in front of a polished tray, and hopping over the parcels.

“Very quietly,” he told himself.

Clink!

One little cup wobbled, but the oni caught it in both hands.

“You see? Quietly.”

Then keys jingled in the doorway.

The oni froze.

There was nowhere to hide. He darted to a large cabinet, pulled out the bottom drawer, climbed inside, and pulled it after him.

A minute later, the workers came in. They inspected the mess, shook their heads, put everything neatly back, and began packing.

They packed the cabinet with the rest of the things.

And with the cabinet, the sleepy oni.

And with the oni, all the cargo ended up aboard a Dutch ship sailing across the sea to Rotterdam.

For the first few days, the oni slept nearly all the time. Then he woke and realized that the floor beneath him was rocking.

“An earthquake?” he whispered.

Boom!

A wave struck the ship’s side.

“A very long earthquake.”

The ship traveled for many days. The oni heard sailors’ footsteps, wood creaking, water splashing, and gulls crying, but he was afraid to poke out his nose. Only at night did he climb out of the drawer, find a little rice among the provisions, drink water, and hide again.

At last, the ship arrived in the Netherlands. The crates were taken to a great house, where the treasures brought from the East were to be shown to a prince and princess.

When the cabinet was opened, the oni sneezed.

“Achoo!”

A servant jumped back.

The oni jumped back too.

For several seconds they stared at one another.

Then they both screamed.

“Ahhh!”

“Ahhh!”

The oni raced down the corridor.

The servant ran after him.

A cook rushed out at the noise.

“What happened?”

“I do not know! It is running around!”

The oni slipped beneath a table, crawled out on the other side, knocked a spoon, and sent it spinning across the floor.

The cook saw his horned head and decided that some strange beast had run into the house.

“Over here!” she called to the gardener.

But the oni had already spotted a dark opening in the wall.

“Oh, a wonderful hiding place!” he thought, and climbed inside.

It was a stone chimney.

A few seconds later, the oni flew out again, black with soot, coughing and sneezing.

“I will never climb into black holes again!” he promised.

But nobody understood his words.

The servants argued.

“He said something in German!”

“No, in French!”

“I thought it was English!”

The princess heard the commotion and came herself.

“Stop guessing,” she said. “You simply do not know his language.”

She told everyone to step back and not frighten the guest.

The oni, tired of all the running, sat right on the floor and sighed sadly.

“It seems he came here with the cargo,” the princess guessed. “We must find someone from the ship who has been to Japan.”

Soon they brought in a sailor who knew a few Japanese words and remembered old stories about oni. When he saw the little traveler, he laughed.

“It seems you do not have a monster. You have a stowaway.”

The oni heard familiar words and almost jumped for joy.

At last, everyone understood what had happened.

They gave the oni a bowl of warm porridge, water, and a quiet little room for several days. There he saw wooden shoes, windmills, and roofs with long channels for rainwater for the first time.

The rain spouts interested him most of all.

“Water runs straight from the roof!” he exclaimed to the sailor.

In the city lived a craftsman who made decorative faces for such spouts. When he saw the oni, he asked permission to draw the funny little face.

“If I make a rain spout with a face like this, rain will pour right from its mouth. Children will laugh whenever there is a downpour.”

The oni stood proudly straight.

“Just draw the horns evenly.”

The craftsman did so. Before long, a strange horned face appeared on one roof, and when it rained, water cheerfully trickled from it.

People liked it. Then there was a second one, a third one, a tenth.

The oni himself waited for a ship sailing back east. This time he did not travel inside a drawer. They found him a dry place near the cargo and warned him firmly.

“Do not move anything.”

“What if it is only a tiny bit?”

“Nothing.”

“Not even a cup?”

“Not even a cup.”

The oni sighed.

“You have very strict rules for sea journeys.”

When he came home, his friends did not believe his story.

“You say people there wear wooden shoes?”

“Yes.”

“And stone oni live on the roofs?”

“They do not live there. They work there. They carry away rainwater.”

“And they look like you?”

The oni nodded proudly.

From then on, whenever rain trickled from a horned stone rain spout in a faraway Dutch city, one could imagine that the old traveling oni was laughing at his strangest adventure.

And perhaps he was thinking that sometimes all it takes is climbing into the wrong drawer once to see half the world.

May this story leave a little light in your heart ✨