Hey hey, this is Thersa Matsuura, author of The Book of Japanese Folklore and the coming-this-fall (2025)the Yokai Oracle Deck which you can preorder if you’d like. I’m here to share with you all those hidden, fascinating, and sometimes frightening corners of old Japan. Come with me as I explore strange superstitions, creepy creatures and cultural curiosities right here on Uncanny Japan.
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Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night, mind racing with the sudden and urgent thought: I wonder who the first samurai was? And then a couple hours later — still no signs of sleep — and things have escalated to: I wonder if severed heads can fly? Well, isn’t that a coincidence. That’s exactly what I want to talk about today.
Today I’m going to tell you about the fierce, the legendary, the wild Taira no Masakado who has been dubbed the first samurai. Was he a bad guy or was he a good guy? And, yeah, will get into airborne heads, and curses too.
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The Great Things
You know how Japan loves Three Great things? Like Sandai Yurei (Three Great Ghosts) (ep 157). We’ve talked about all three of them. Oiwa in the story of Yotsuya Kaidan (ep. 42 ) , Okiku in the story Bancho Sarayashiki (ep. 25 ) and Otsuyu in Botan Doro (The Peony Lantern) (ep. 158).
But there’s also Sandai Reizan (Three Great Sacred Mountains) and Sandai Keikan (Three Great Scenic Views), there’s even Sandai Hikyo Eki (Three Great Remote Train Stations). There are a lot.
There are also Sandai Onryo (Three Great Grudge-Holding spirits). If you thought it was a little unfair that the Three Great Ghosts were all women, well, the three great Onryo or vengeful spirits are all men. And ONE of those angry ghosties is Taira no Masakado.
Three Great Grudge-Holding Spirits, One is Taira no Masakado
Taira no Masakado — often called the first samurai — lived all the way back in the early 900s. He
was a descendant of Emperor Kanmu. His grandfather (Prince Takamochi) was in fact the great grandson of the emperor. However, to mitigate the constantly growing imperial family — people marrying people, having lots of babies, things like that — who all needed to be taken care of and could also presumably start influencing politics, the emperor would occasionally demote (so to speak) family members. And that’s exactly what he did to Prince Takamochi. Instead of being a direct descendant of the gods, he gave him the name Taira and put him in charge of that clan. Keep that little bit of information in mind.
So Taira no Masakado was born around what is now Ibaraki and Chiba prefectures. He grew up and served in the Imperial Heian Court in Kyoto for awhile, trying to secure a certain position, but turns out he couldn’t so he returned home, near Tokyo. Everything was fine until it wasn’t.
Betrayal and Revenge
There are a couple versions of what went wrong. There’s the ubiquitous it all happened over a woman, but the one I read about most is that his father died and it was inheritance time. Suddenly, all of Masakado’s uncles alongside some men from the Minamoto tribe began snatching up the land that was rightfully his. And if that wasn’t enough, when he fought back, they tried to ambush him. Little did they know what an awesome fighter Masakado really was.
Not only did Taira no Masakado defeat these ingrates, he set fire to their land and killed thousands. This landed him in court. But it was found that he did nothing wrong. He was allowed to go free. But it didn’t end there. Next his father-in-law and relatives from that side of the family attacked after those huge tracks of land. Masakado went through the proper channels, but things got a little out of hand, and he went scorched earth. He ended up conquering eight entire provinces.
A Hero to the Poor
I know what you’re thinking, what an asshole. But hear me out. These relatives stole from him first, and what’s an even better measure of character, these areas he took over, well, the peasants and lower class citizens had been horribly abused and taken advantage of by the richer more powerful land owners and local politicians for so long, that when Taira no Masakado sweeps in and is, like, fair with them and treats them like humans, they totally take his side. They adore him and his little army. He’s their hero.
Some stories say he got a little full of himself and proclaimed himself the “New Emperor” of the Kanto region and even set up his own court and bureaucracy. Because, theoretically, he did have royal blood. Other tales suggest it was the Imperial court back in Kyoto that heard about how powerful and (gasp) likable he was and feared that that’s exactly what he might do. So the called him an outlaw and a rebel and started the rumor. They also put a bounty on his head.
Masakado’s Murder
Sadly, 59 days after that announcement his cousin (Taira no Sadamori) and a man named Fujiwara no Masakado took it upon themselves to attack Taira no Masakado in the Battle of Kojima and kill him. He was only 37 years old.
Beheading
Here’s where the story gets even more interesting. As was done at the time — proof that they’d murdered their intended target — Fujiwara and Sadamori cut off his head and carried it back to Kyoto where the emperor ordered it to be put on display in the eastern marketplace as a grisly warning to anyone else who might get some bright idea about leading an uprising.
What’s worse is that the emperor expressly forbade anyone to give Masakado’s remains a proper Buddhist funeral or memorial service. No prayers offered. This might be what garnered him the “vengeful spirit” title. We know how important it is to put a person’s soul at rest. By denying this ceremony the emperor condemned this heroic first samurai’s spirit to wander this earthly realm for, well, ever. As it is, I’ll get to that in a minute, too.
Not Your Average Severed Head
There was something strange going on though. Masakado’s decapitated head didn’t decompose. I mean it looked wretched, long greasy, tangled hair, dirty face, ferocious scowl, you know, blood and gunk and gore. But it survived a trip across Japan, and then for three months sitting out in the sun outside a market with a sign stating his crimes beneath it, people walking by and gawking, and the whole time it looked — for lack of a better word — fresh. Its eyes remained open and glaring, at time rolling around in their sockets. Some say it moaned and spontaneously called out for its body because he wanted to continue fighting.
There are also a couple different tales regarding what happened at the end of that three months.
Flying Head
One was that a poet recorded that he witnessed the head groaning as it turned to the left and then right almost like it was looking for something. Then with a heave ho it broke away from the stand and flew of north, seeming searching for its body.
Another that it was mocked or someone whispered to it, Masakado’s body’s location. Either way, it made a perfectly creepy grin and closed its eyes. Then that night it started to glowed brightly, let out an eerie cry and flew off back toward the Kanto area.
It was a long trip and the decapitated flying head flew for a while, landed to rest for a bit, then took off again. Eventually it stopped for good in a fishing village called Shibasaki. Here would grow up to become Edo and then later still, Tokyo. The locals stumbled across this exhausted disembodied head, realized who it was and cleaned it up. They then, realizing he was none too happy about the events surrounding his demise, they respectively gave it a proper burial. This was a kubizuka or head mound. The villagers then built a shrine to the great warrior and honored him as the hero he was, a rebel for the common person, standing up against greedy, powerful, mean elites.
Cursed Head and Head Mound
He wasn’t perfectly appeased, though. Some reported seeing his ghost wandering around the streets near the shrine. For the most part, you didn’t hear about him for some time but every so often over the years, whenever the shrine was neglected or forgotten, bad things happened, like natural disasters. When it was properly honored, everything calmed down again.
For example, in the 14th century a great plague struck the city of Edo and it was blamed on Masakado’s still simmering rage. A monument was built in 1309 to appease the disgruntled spirit and the curse lifted for a while.
In 1923 the Great Kanto Earthquake struck. The Ministry of Finance building which was located near the Kubizuka collapsed. They tried to relocate the head mound during the reconstruction so they could use that space to build something new. But people, specifically leaders and executives of both the construction company and the ministry of finance started dropping dead. Fourteen people ended up dying before someone figured out it was the curse of Masakado’s head. They nixed constructing a new building on the site and instead built a stone monument to Taira no Masakado in 1927.
This great samurai wasn’t finished being angry though. In 1940 that new Ministry of Finance building was struck by lightning and burned to the ground. Cue more groveling, ceremonies and another monument built for Masakado.
After the end of WWII Americans went in and decided they’d make a parking lot of the place. Nope.
Masakado’s spirit flips over a bulldozer, kills the driver, and that project quickly comes to a halt. These days it is well kept and prayed to regularly.
Extra Trivia
A couple other tidbits before I let you go:
When Taira no Masakado was preparing for one of his rebellions a huge swarm of butterflies appeared in Kyoto. It was thought to be a sign. Unfortunately, you don’t really find that Masakado is associated with butterflies. Frogs, yes. I’ll get to that in a second.
From the original legend there have grown other tales about the great Masakado. In one story, Tawara Toda Monogatari, he’s described as being almost superhuman. He had such mysterious power that he was able to create six identical copies of himself. This way, while on the battlefield, there would be seven Taira no Masakados running around chopping people up. Since no one knew which one was the real one, he was impossible to defeat. Here it was said he only had a single weak point, right below his ear. A concubine revealed to Fujiwara no Hidesato the trick to find the real Masakado was to look at the shadows, all the copies didn’t have one. Fujiwara was then easily able to locate the real warrior and shoot him under the ear with an arrow, killing him on the spot.
There is also a festival — the Masakado Matsuri — held every year in November in Bando City, Ibaraki Prefecture.
And finally, frogs. If you ever visit the Kubzuka spot — not far from the Emperor’s Palace or Tokyo Station — there are also a set of rules for anyone who dares to visit his site:
Very simply, no noisy, obnoxious or disrespectful people should visit. Be quiet, don’t litter, don’t mess with anything, pay your respects quietly, then leave.
You might be a little confused because you’ll find lots of frogs around the monument. Frog statues that is. There’s a reason. Remember his severed head sort of hopped its way home, stopping to rest along the way. Like a frog. Also the word for frog is kaeru. Kaeru (different kanji) also means to return, go back, or go home. Not just here but you’ll find frogs are a symbol of returning somewhere safely. You’ll find small froggy charms sold all over Japan and people carry them for just this reason. It could be to return somewhere safely, or if you lost something, for it to come back to you safely, if you are having some bad health the frog can represent good health returning. My mother in law gave me one ages ago that she told me to keep in my wallet. Its magic power was to return any money I spent back to me.
There you go. The first samurai of Japan, a powerful symbol of resistance and bravery. And when double crossed, some epic curses.
Thank you for listening, talk to you in two weeks. Bye bye.
