Nanigé naki

Ishi no Jizō no

Sugata saë,

Yo wa osoroshiki

Mikagé to zo naki.

[Though the stone Jizō looks as if nothing were the matter with it, they say that at night it assumes an awful aspect (or, "Though this image appears to be a common stone Jizō, they say that at night it becomes an awful Jizō; of granite."[57])]

XII. UMI-BŌZU

Place a large cuttlefish on a table, body upwards and tentacles downwards—and you will have before you the grotesque reality that first suggested the fancy of the Umi-Bōzu, or Priest of the Sea. For the great bald body in this position, with the staring eyes below, bears a distorted resemblance to the shaven head of a priest; while the crawling tentacles underneath (which are in some species united by a dark web) suggests the wavering motion of the priest's upper robe.... The Umi-Bōzu figures a good deal in the literature of Japanese goblinry, and in the old-fashioned picture-books. He rises from the deep in foul weather to seize his prey.