Yoshida Kenko, also called Kenko Hoshi, was a poet and essayist of the late Kamakura and Nanboku-cho periods.
He is known as the author of the essay collection Tsurezuregusa (Essays in Idleness), whose 89th section mentions a rumor that a creature called the nekomata lived deep in the mountains and ate people. In the story, a monk who believed he was attacked by a nekomata on a night road fell into a stream, but it was only his own pet dog jumping on him. It is often cited as an early record of the nekomata.
