detachable-neck-or-head-wanders-at-night

Rokurokubi · salience 0.95

“Some tellings distinguish a separate but closely related type, the nukekubi, whose head detaches from the neck entirely and flies off on its own to hunt at night, rejoining the body before dawn; accounts vary on whether these are two names for one being or genuinely distinct yokai, and Edo-period storytellers and artists, including Toriyama Sekien in his yokai compendia, treated both forms as part of the same broader category.”