Meet Japan’s mythical beast who appears in bolts of lightning

The Japanese raijū (thunder beast) is said to fall to Earth in a bolt of lightning. It is generally described as looking like a weasel, but is also compared to a cat, a wolf or a badger. According to folklore the raijū is normally docile, but becomes agitated during storms and leaps up to run among the clouds. Trees struck by lightning are said to have been scratched by its claws. When lightning damaged crops, villagers in some areas would go on Kaminari-gari (thunder-hunting) expeditions to where lightning had struck. They surrounded the spot with bamboo poles wrapped in sacred ropes to contain the raijū until it calmed down. Nineteenth-century drawings of raijū which had supposedly fallen from the sky show a creature about 60cm long with a tail half that length and webbed feet with sharp claws. Some temples and private collectors displayed what were said to be stuffed or mummified raijū remains. These turned out to be fakes assembled from parts of different animals. In one account, a raijū landed on the roof of a samurai in Akita. Rather than fleeing, the warrior killed the creature, then boiled and ate it. The samurai suffered no ill effects, but the flavour of the beast was not recorded.