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Ban KōKē (伴蒿蹊, Japanese, *1733, †1806) - scanned from ISBN 978-4-7601-1299-9. |
The Raijū (Thunder Beast) is a Japanese creature and the companion of Raijin, the Shinto god of lightning. It primarily lives in the sky. It's body is composed of lightning and with the form of a white and blue wolf or dog sometimes even wrapped in lightning. Sometimes the creature can be in different animals like for example tanuki, leopards, foxes, weasels, tigers, bears, dragon, sea creatures and ect. It can also fly in a ball of lightening and its cry sounds like thunder.
The beast is relatively harmless, but during thunderstorms it becomes agitated and leaps about trees, fields, and buildings. Things that have been struck by lightning are said to have been scratched by Raijū's claws.
The Raijū will sometimes rest in human belly buttons and when the Raijū does this Raijin shoots arrows at it to wake it up. This will harm the person that the Raijū decided to sleep on. Superstitious people will sleep on their stomach during bad weather so that the Raijū wouldn't pick their naval for slumber. Other's believe that those who sleep outside are the only ones who the Raijū do this to.
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