The Tengu Who Warned

There have been many tales about me, perpetuated in Shinto mythology. Many misleading. That I mislead.

But I do lead. And make sure that they stay the course. 

This tengu does the tango - with the lute.

⛰️👺🎶⛰️👺🎶⛰️👺🎶

You see, I am a Tengu. A Japanese mountain spirit with a huge red beak, rather like a malformed eagle. I have a reputation that's large, and largely misunderstood. 

So let me clarify a few matters. 

Let's begin with an observation. A monastery abbot trying to teach young monks what little he knows about me.

He told them that monks shouldn't have pride, and they shouldn't. Pride attracts me, you see. He told these young men that I am a source of temptation for monks.

The tale he told was in order; neat enough for them to memorise. But, as with all stories, it left the mountain -

Changed.

Slightly distorted.

So I'm here to mend the holes in the narrative.

But they are a little too dramatic about the effect I have on the young men. Some of them had scaled these slopes and borne witness to nothing. Others returned to the monastery, their faces blanched, souls shaken soundly after a single night. 

Not all of them had seen me. Knew of me. 

I was the silent demon tempter in some; the one who tried to sway them to the side of worldliness. Yet, others were bereft of that experience.

Few knew my purpose. Why my visits remained selective and sentient. 

The tales of which I was the protagonist never explained the difference; they remained lost fragments of the human imagination. 

For I was never the Japanese tempter Shinto Buddhist monks knew. I was their sentinel. 

Ever watchful, perched nearby, my form omnipresent. But unseen.

 I approached the religious young men, balanced perfectly on tree branches close to them.

My voice? Not voluptuous. Not alluring.

It was the sound of one in deep prayer. The patience of one in deep reverence. 

My tales of monasteries were genuine; they rang of ones i recalled. 

Yet their sound did not soothe. It instead grated. Not of me

Of the recognition and earthiness the young monks craved.

For long before their time, I wore robes like theirs. 

Prayed as they did. Chanted the Sutras along with others who donned the same robes. 

But pride grew slowly with quiet contemplation. The ruination of unhealthy self-belief. 

Ego reigned and I was above all else. Every other monk. 

Every other person. 

I was by no means the only monk who fell. The mountains were full of men in robes who stumbled. Who failed their vows. 

So the lure is not my lute. 

No, I was not there to make them succumb to the world. To  its wondrous allure. 

I understood the traps it carried all too well. I do play the lute; not to charm, but to warn. 

For I knew far to well the nature of entrapment. How temptation is good in disguise. 

How the well-intentioned can falter falsely. How it is too possible to teeter on the brink of spiritual nothingness.

The mountain did not send me for coercion. It sent me for conversion. 

It kept the ones already fallen. And wanted to stop others falling. 

So I continue to dance the dance that draws. That pulls with charming strength.

I continue to play the lute for these young, religious men. But it is to emplace. To entrust them with the tools they need for spiritual survival. 

Some stories remain simple to survive. The ones told of me were too simple. The truth, too muted. 

Few men would climb the mountain if they knew the ending.

Few would stay the course. Walk the path that was meant.

So I play my lute to guide to the right. And shape the road for the robed traveller.

⛰️👺🎶⛰️👺🎶⛰️👺🎶

Original story by Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin. AI tags are coincidental.

For Vocal's What the Myth Get Wrong Challenge