An owl possessed by the soul of a dead infant
Tatarimokke
Deep in the forest, an owl calls — hoo, hoo. Perhaps it is not a beast's cry at all, but the small, unheard weeping of a child who never got to live.
Overview
Tatarimokke is an owl inhabited by the soul of a dead infant, said to cry with a baby's crying voice. It is said to appear near places where a child was buried unjustly, without proper funeral rites.
Encounter
It reveals itself in a night forest at the hoot of an owl, especially near a place where an infant met an unhappy death and was quietly buried nearby without a funeral. It is also said to appear along a path accompanied by a will-o'-the-wisp-like light.
Lore
Folklore records from Kitatsugaru District (around present-day Goshogawara) and Kanagi in Aomori Prefecture describe the soul of a dead infant becoming a Tatarimokke that inhabits a forest owl and cries. Similar accounts appear in Uchida Kunihiko's Tsugaru Kohishu (1929) and the Miyagi Prefecture History, Folklore volume 3 (1956); the same tradition is also told in the Tono region of Iwate.
Traits
It is the soul of a dead infant itself, borrowing an owl's body to cry night after night in what is said to be a baby's voice, unsettling anyone who hears it. A soul that lingers in a house without cursing it becomes a zashiki-warashi; one that clings with grief strong enough to bring misfortune upon the household is feared as a Tatarimokke instead. Households that lost a child are said not to mistreat the owl believed to carry its voice.
The soul of a dead infant becomes Tatarimokke and dwells in an owl, crying.
Miyagi-ken Shi, Minzoku 3