What is the nue?
The nue is a monster said to have the face of a monkey, the body of a tanuki, the limbs of a tiger and a snake for a tail. At night it cries with a lonely, eerie “hyo, hyo,” and hearing its voice was feared as an omen of misfortune. Because it combines several animals, it is sometimes compared to the Western chimera.
Minamoto no Yorimasa slays the nue
According to The Tale of the Heike, at the end of the Heian period Emperor Konoe was tormented every night by something and fell ill. At night a black cloud hung over the palace and an eerie cry echoed. The master archer Minamoto no Yorimasa was ordered to shoot an arrow into the black cloud, and down fell a monster with a monkey’s face, a tanuki’s body, a tiger’s limbs and a snake’s tail. This was said to be the nue. It also appears in the yokai books of Toriyama Sekien.
The real nue, and “nue-like”
“Nue” was originally an old name for the White’s thrush, a bird that sings a mournful “hee, hyo” at night. People who heard the call without seeing the bird thought it was the voice of a monster. The creature Yorimasa defeated was named after this cry because no one knew what it was. From this, Japanese came to describe people and things of unclear nature as “nue-like.”
