Originally a “shooting star”
In ancient China, the word tengu (“heavenly dog”) was used to describe shooting stars and comets, imagined as dogs racing across the sky. In Japan, the Nihon Shoki records that in 637 a monk called a loudly roaring shooting star a tengu. This is considered the oldest record of the word in Japan.
Becoming a mountain yokai
From the medieval period on, the tengu came to be described as a yokai living in the mountains, and its familiar image took shape: dressed like a yamabushi mountain ascetic, holding a feathered fan and flying through the air. Two types are especially well known: the red-faced, long-nosed hanadaka-tengu (great tengu) and the beaked karasu-tengu (crow tengu).
Faith and legend
A famous legend tells how the tengu of Mount Kurama in Kyoto taught swordsmanship to the young Ushiwakamaru, later the warrior Minamoto no Yoshitsune. On Mount Takao and other sacred mountains, tengu are worshipped as messengers of the mountain gods. Stories of tengu carrying people off into the mountains, known as “tengu-kakushi” or spirit abduction, are also told in many regions.
