Konaki-jiji

Konaki-jiji (子泣き爺, Konaki-Jijī, translated into Old man crying) is a kind of Japanese yōkai, a supernatural spirit in Japanese folklore. It is similar to the Scandinavian myling, the Slavic poroniec and the Germanic Aufhocker

The Konaki-jiji is said to be able to take the appearance of an old man or a baby.^[1][2] In either case, the spirit lures an unwary passerby towards it and allows him or her to pick it up. After the spirit is picked up, it suddenly becomes a heavy stone that crushes the victim to death.^[1][2] In some versions of Konaki-jiji stories, the spirit is that of a baby left to die in the wilderness.^[3]

The Konaki-jiji can be traced back to family records in Shikoku where the term was used to describe an old man who sounded like a child when he cried.^[4] The term was eventually used in a national encyclopedia of yōkai and became a nationally known phenomenon.^[4]

In the manga series Dandadan, the spirit known as onbusuman is based on the Konaki-jiji. In the manga it appears as a creature with the large head of an old man, the shell of a turtle, the arms and legs of an infant and a long hairy tail.^[5]