# Rokurokubi
**Rokurokubi** (轆轤首; also written ろくろ首 or 轆轤頸) is a Japanese yōkai, a creature of legend, defined in the *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* as a monster with a very long neck that can stretch and shrink freely; the dictionary also records the word for a sideshow spectacle and equates it with the nukekubi, whose head detaches completely.[1](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E8%BD%86%E8%BD%A4%E9%A6%96-663507) Under the one name, tradition gathers several forms: detached flying heads, people who experience the neck's adventures only as a dream, bodies and heads joined by a thin line, and figures able to lengthen the neck at will.[2](https://yokai.jp/en/yokai/rokurokubi) The name also carries an everyday figurative sense, waiting with an outstretched neck.[1](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E8%BD%86%E8%BD%A4%E9%A6%96-663507)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Definition | A monster with a very long neck that stretches and shrinks freely; also a sideshow spectacle; equated with nukekubi[1](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E8%BD%86%E8%BD%A4%E9%A6%96-663507) |
| Earliest attestation | A haikai verse in the anthology *Takatsukuba*, dated 1638 by the *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* (bibliographic records also give 1642)[2](https://yokai.jp/en/yokai/rokurokubi) |
| Two forms | A head that separates completely and acts independently, versus a head joined to the body by a thin cord-like neck[3](https://crd.ndl.go.jp/reference/entry/index.php?id=1000377426&page=ref_view) |
| Chinese antecedent | The flying head (*feitoumán*, 飛頭蛮) of Chinese sources, including the *Soushen ji* and the *Youyang zazu*[2](https://yokai.jp/en/yokai/rokurokubi) |
| Edo iconography | Toriyama Sekien's *Gazu Hyakki Yagyō* (1776) presents Hitōban with the reading "rokurokubi", showing a sleeping woman with a floating head joined by a slender line[2](https://yokai.jp/en/yokai/rokurokubi) |
| Form transformation | The name was applied to the Chinese-imported Hitōban, whose shape changed from flying-head type through thread-neck type to long-neck type (Yokoyama; Kadowaki)[3](https://crd.ndl.go.jp/reference/entry/index.php?id=1000377426&page=ref_view) |
| Rationalist reading | The phenomenon explained as illness, the 離魂病 (soul-separation disease)[4](https://www.komazawa-u.ac.jp/~hagi/MMp12fuken15_rokurokubi.pdf) |
## Rokurokubi and nukekubi: one name, two forms
The mechanical distinction is between a head that flies off and a neck that merely elongates. Reference works blur the line: the *Kadokawa Nihon Yōkai Daijiten* (2005) treats nukekubi and Hitōban (飛頭蛮) as forms identified with rokurokubi, and the *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* treats nukekubi, hitōban, and rokurokubi as near-synonyms.[3](https://crd.ndl.go.jp/reference/entry/index.php?id=1000377426&page=ref_view) Two forms are distinguished in the scholarship: one in which the head completely separates and acts independently, and one connected by a thin, cord-like neck.[3](https://crd.ndl.go.jp/reference/entry/index.php?id=1000377426&page=ref_view)
**The fatal-body rule.** According to nukekubi lore, should the body be relocated during the head's absence, the head will be unable to come back, dooming the creature to death.[5](https://nazomap.jp/en/zukan/rokurokubi/) The monk Zekigan's tale from Higo province is of this detached type: lodging in the village of Shikoro, he watched a woman's head leave her body at night through a broken window, leaving a white line behind, and return at dawn.[4](https://www.komazawa-u.ac.jp/~hagi/MMp12fuken15_rokurokubi.pdf) This account appears in the *Kokon Hyaku Monogatari Hyōban* (1686) and draws on southern Chinese flying heads.[2](https://yokai.jp/en/yokai/rokurokubi)
## Earliest attestations and textual history
The earliest currently identifiable candidate for the word is "rokurokubi" in volume two of the haikai anthology *Takatsukuba*; the *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* lists the verse as from 1638, though bibliographic records also date the book to 1642.[2](https://yokai.jp/en/yokai/rokurokubi) The cited verse reads: "夜ぬけにぬけし人はおそろし 月にしもみつけにけりなろくろ首〈重次〉", an ominous moonlit sighting.[1](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E8%BD%86%E8%BD%A4%E9%A6%96-663507) The name then spread through haikai and story collections: it appears in the *Seishō Senku* in 1648, and in 1677 as the title "Rokurokubi of Fuchū in Echizen Province" in the *Shokoku Hyaku Monogatari*.[2](https://yokai.jp/en/yokai/rokurokubi)
## From Chinese flying head to long neck
The nukekubi type is thought to derive from a Chinese legend called *feitoumán* (hitōban in Japanese), and Toriyama Sekien drew the rokurokubi under that name.[5](https://nazomap.jp/en/zukan/rokurokubi/) The Chinese sources are explicit about the mechanism. The *Soushen ji* includes a woman, in one version a maid of the general [Zhu Huan](https://www.edgepedia.org/zhu-huan), whose head flies by night and returns at dawn.[2](https://yokai.jp/en/yokai/rokurokubi) The *Nanfang Yiwu Zhi* records flying heads in Lingnan with a red neck mark who fly at night using their ears as wings; the *Taiping Guangji* describes the Feitou Liao, whose threadlike red neck ring appears a day before the head flies, the person eating crabs and worms and returning at dawn.[4](https://www.komazawa-u.ac.jp/~hagi/MMp12fuken15_rokurokubi.pdf) The *Youyang zazu* describes the Feitou Liaozi with a ringlike red neck mark, head-wings, and a diet of crabs and earthworms.[2](https://yokai.jp/en/yokai/rokurokubi) The *Shiyi Ji* carries a related account of head-flying people of the Inchi kingdom under [Emperor Wu of Han](https://www.edgepedia.org/emperor-wu-of-han), whose heads and hands flew in different directions and returned at dusk.[4](https://www.komazawa-u.ac.jp/~hagi/MMp12fuken15_rokurokubi.pdf)
**The name itself points to a well pulley.** A Chinese verse "鼻飲如瓴甋首飛似轆轤" was rendered in the *Baiwu Chō Hyōban* as "南蠻の人には「ろくろ首ありて、釣瓶をおろしあぐるが如し"", a southern people having rokurokubi that lower and draw up like a well bucket, and the study concludes the name derives from this image.[4](https://www.komazawa-u.ac.jp/~hagi/MMp12fuken15_rokurokubi.pdf)
How the flying head became a stretching neck is the subject of the form-transformation argument. According to Yasuko Yokoyama, an initial line drawn to depict a head in flight slowly transformed into the neck, progressing from a flying-head shape by way of a thread-neck shape to a long-neck shape.[2](https://yokai.jp/en/yokai/rokurokubi) Kadowaki Michiaki's *Nihon Yōkaigaku Taizen* (Shōgakukan, pp. 179–204, "近世文化における轆轤首の形状について") makes the same case: the name rokurokubi was applied to the Chinese-imported Hitōban, and its shape changed from flying-head type through thread-neck type to long-neck type.[3](https://crd.ndl.go.jp/reference/entry/index.php?id=1000377426&page=ref_view)
## Edo and Meiji pictures and tales
Sawaki Sūshi's *Hyakkai Zukan* (1737) depicts a nukekubi, while Toriyama Sekien's *Gazu Hyakki Yagyō* (1776) presents Hitōban with the reading "rokurokubi", showing a sleeping woman's body and a floating head joined by a slender line.[2](https://yokai.jp/en/yokai/rokurokubi)
Rokurokubi are well-known yōkai with extremely elongated necks, and the rokurokubi drawn by Toriyama Sekien and Utagawa Toyokuni are women.[6](https://www.ndl.go.jp/en/imagebank/column/sekienyokai) Later, Yoshitoshi's *Shinkei sanjurokai-sen omoitsuzura* depicts a male rokurokubi emerging from a basket; the neck-stretched giant monk Mikoshi-nyūdō, however, is not really a rokurokubi.[6](https://www.ndl.go.jp/en/imagebank/column/sekienyokai) Comedy ran alongside the eerie: in the kyōgen piece *Kyōgen Suehirogari* (1788), a woman's neck stretches from Edo to Kamigata, producing laughter rather than fear,[2](https://yokai.jp/en/yokai/rokurokubi) and an Edo-period kobanashi preserved in the Nichibunken database jokes that a rokurokubi is fine when drinking sake but suffers when eating okara, the long throat making coarse food an ordeal.[7](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0700553)
## Regional records
The early Echizen woman harms no one and enters Buddhist practice out of shame at her deluded thoughts.[2](https://yokai.jp/en/yokai/rokurokubi)
The regional records are dated and specific. According to a 1933 account from Ibaraki, in a merchant family during the early [Meiji era](https://www.edgepedia.org/meiji-era), a daughter's neck would lengthen nightly until the household eventually departed the region.[2](https://yokai.jp/en/yokai/rokurokubi) A 1943 Aichi record links marriage to a curse from sleeping atop a burial mound.[2](https://yokai.jp/en/yokai/rokurokubi) A 1974 Shiga record recalls a hardworking bride being a rokurokubi.[2](https://yokai.jp/en/yokai/rokurokubi)
## Rationalist explanations and spread beyond Japan
A study in the journal *Fūzoku Kenkyū* ("非科學時代の迷信（轆轤頸）", 風俗研究 十六) attributes the phenomenon to illness, the 離魂病 or soul-separation disease, and concludes that the Chinese flying-head tales imported into Japan transformed into a national legend.[4](https://www.komazawa-u.ac.jp/~hagi/MMp12fuken15_rokurokubi.pdf)
The legend's transmission abroad changed its character. [Lafcadio Hearn](https://www.edgepedia.org/lafcadio-hearn)'s 1904 *Kwaidan* includes the story "Rokuro-Kubi", set around the samurai Isogai Hēïdazaëmon Takétsura, an early English-language transmission.[8](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kwaidan%3A_Stories_and_Studies_of_Strange_Things/Rokuro-Kubi) The detached-head interpretation introduced to the world by Hearn most strongly inherits the lineage of the Chinese flying head and completely breaks away from the comical image of the neck-stretching ghost popularized in Japan.[9](https://yokai.jp/en/yokai/rokurokubi/shouchou)
## The rokurokubi today
The comic neck-stretching image and Hearn's detached-head image now coexist. Daiei's 1968 film *Yōkai Hyaku Monogatari* advertised a "rokurokubi that stretches smoothly" as a highlight, and modern works include a friendly rokurokubi woman living within a human community.[2](https://yokai.jp/en/yokai/rokurokubi) A 2017 academic article classifies the rokurokubi as a yōkai image generated by exaggerating a body part, the elongated neck, alongside the hitotsume kozō, with cited images drawn in the latter half of the eighteenth century.[10](https://doi.org/10.4236/aa.2017.72006)
## References
1. [轆轤首（ロクロクビ）とは？ 意味や使い方, Nihon Kokugo Daijiten via Kotobank](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E8%BD%86%E8%BD%A4%E9%A6%96-663507)
2. [Rokurokubi, Yokai Encyclopedia, YOKAI.JP](https://yokai.jp/en/yokai/rokurokubi)
3. [飛頭蛮（ひとうばん）が中国版ろくろ首と紹介されている…, レファレンス協同データベース, National Diet Library](https://crd.ndl.go.jp/reference/entry/index.php?id=1000377426&page=ref_view)
4. [非科學時代の迷信（轆轤頸）, 雑誌「風俗研究」十六, Komazawa University digitized article](https://www.komazawa-u.ac.jp/~hagi/MMp12fuken15_rokurokubi.pdf)
5. [Rokurokubi: Meaning, Legend & Origin, NazoMap](https://nazomap.jp/en/zukan/rokurokubi/)
6. [TORIYAMA Sekien's Illustrated Night Parade of the Demon Horde, NDL Image Bank](https://www.ndl.go.jp/en/imagebank/column/sekienyokai)
7. [ろくろ首, 怪異・妖怪伝承データベース, Nichibunken](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0700553)
8. [Kwaidan: Rokuro-Kubi, Lafcadio Hearn, 1904, Wikisource](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kwaidan%3A_Stories_and_Studies_of_Strange_Things/Rokuro-Kubi)
9. [Rokurokubi (detached-head interpretation), Yokai Encyclopedia, YOKAI.JP](https://yokai.jp/en/yokai/rokurokubi/shouchou)
10. [Depictions and Modelings of the Body Seen in Japanese Folk Religion: Connections to Yokai Images, Anthropological Science (2017)](https://doi.org/10.4236/aa.2017.72006)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Society and history › Philosophy, religion, and mythology › Mythology and folklore › Legendary creatures and beings › Shapeshifters and animal beings*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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