The Greedy Old Woman by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi Image: “A result of her greediness, the trunk weighed heavily on her shoulders as the little old lady dragged herself along step by step. She had gone to visit the nest of Shitaraki suzume [tongue-cut sparrow]. Her evil spirit leading her to travel a thousand li to commit a selfish deed. The story of the Monster’s Night Parade will linger in the ears of children after they hear this fairy tale. Look at the picture, how the Momonga monster scares the evil old woman! This is a scene of poetic justice.” – Kanagaki Robun Photo Courtesy of ASU Art Museum
“A result of her greediness, the trunk weighed heavily on her shoulders as the little old lady dragged herself along step by step. She had gone to visit the nest of Shitaraki suzume [tongue-cut sparrow]. Her evil spirit leading her to travel a thousand li to commit a selfish deed. The story of the Monster’s Night Parade will linger in the ears of children after they hear this fairy tale. Look at the picture, how the Momonga monster scares the evil old woman! This is a scene of poetic justice.” – Kanagaki Robun Photo Courtesy of ASU Art Museum

The Greedy Old Woman

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The story of the Tongue-Cut Sparrow was one of the most popular frightening tales in Japan, and the caption here references children remembering the story for years to come. An old man was good friends with the little sparrow, but the old woman who lives next door hates the sparrow for eating a little of the rice-paste she left out. She woman catches the sparrow and cuts out its tongue before releasing it again. The man felt sorry for his bird friend, and so traveled a very long distance to visit the sparrow’s home in the forest. At the end of a friendly visit, the sparrow offers the man a choice of a small basket or a large basket as a gift. The man humbly chooses the small basket, and when he returns home he finds it filled with little treasures. The woman becomes jealous, and makes the same long journey to find the sparrow’s home in the forest. When the bird offers her the same choice of gifts, she greedily chooses the larger basket. As the caption described, the basket weighed her down as she returned home, and when she opened it she found it full of horrible monsters who climb out and eat her.

The demons in Yoshitoshi’s picture are menacing as they prepare to eat the old woman, but they are also endearing and likeable, a quality we see in depictions of demons and kami in anime films like Spirited Away and others. The caption sets the whole story up as a morality tale, with the greedy old woman’s demise described as “poetic justice”.

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