Kosenjōbi

ghost · Japan · East Asia and Pacific

Kosenjōbi are ghost-fires of Japanese folklore: will-o'-the-wisp flames that appear over old battlefields, said to be the spirits of soldiers and horses killed in war, rising from the ground at dusk. The name is recorded in early modern collections such as the Shūchin-sō (17th century) and depicted in Toriyama Sekien's Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki.

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