Yokai Quiz

Tengu (Mountain Goblin)

Hidden deep in the mountains, you keep to your own ways and keep honing your skills.

Stay unseenStay as you areOut in the wild

The tengu is a yokai said to live in the mountains. It's pictured with a red face and a long nose, dressed like a yamabushi — a mountain ascetic who trains in the wilds — with a feather fan in hand, and is said to fly through the sky on the wings on its back. A crow-beaked form, the “karasu-tengu,” is also well known.

The tengu rarely shows itself to people. You hear what sounds like a great tree crashing down in the mountains at night, but in the morning not a single tree has fallen. Events like this have been called “tengu-daoshi” — tengu tree-felling — and put down to the tengu's doing. Without coming forward, you let people know you're there through sound and presence alone.

There's a well-known story that the tengu of Mount Kurama in Kyoto taught swordsmanship to the young Minamoto no Yoshitsune, a famous warrior then known as Ushiwakamaru. The tengu doesn't bend its ways for anyone, and goes on honing its skills in the mountains, far from where people live. Because of that, places where you're expected to fit in with other people's ways can feel confining.

Strengths

On your own, you can keep refining a way of doing things you've chosen for yourself
Out in nature where there are few people, you can stay focused
You don't get swept along by what others say, and your judgment stays steady

Where you may stumble

Where you're asked to follow a set way of doing things, you feel boxed in
You go ahead with things you've decided on without explaining them to anyone
After a long time in a busy town, you start to miss the mountains

Sounds familiar, Tengu (Mountain Goblin)?

On mountain trails or long flights of steps, you notice you're the only one way out in front
On days off, you're hunting for trails that show up as only a faint line on the map
In summer, you never put down your hand fan and keep sweeping it in big strokes as you talk

Where you shine

Time alone in the mountains far from town, honing a skill, is when the Tengu's ways tend to shine brightest.

Tips for “Tengu (Mountain Goblin)”

When you've decided something, tell someone close to you — even if it's just the result
When you're learning from someone, try doing it their way exactly once first
On days you head into the mountains, let at least one person know where you're going

Matches

See every match in the Yokai Quiz compatibility chart →

Easy together

Kappa (River Imp) — The Kappa, always in the same river, ready to challenge you head-on to a sumo match — for a Tengu up in the mountains, it's someone who'll greet you in the same old way whenever you come down. Neither of you bends your ways, so even your matches end cleanly.

Easy together

Yamabiko (Mountain Echo) — The Yamabiko also stays unseen deep in the mountains and lets only its voice say it's there. You both make yourselves known by sound before you're seen, so you can understand each other in the mountains without exchanging many words.

May clash

Bake-danuki (Shape-shifting Raccoon Dog) — The highlight of Bake-danuki stories is the way it changes form for each person in the village to get a laugh. To a Tengu who wants to master one skill in the mountains in its own way, that ever-changing approach is hard to follow, and to the Tanuki, the Tengu seems like someone who won't play along with a joke.