河童娘
かっぱむすめ

Translation: kappa daughter, kappa girl
Habitat: villages near rivers or lakes
Diet: omnivorous

Appearance: Kappa musume look just like young human women, however they are really kappa in disguise.

Interactions: Kappa musume show up unannounced in human villages and try to blend in with the locals. They generally do not perform mischief or get into trouble—usually they just want food. When someone feeds them, they will repeatedly visit that house until driven away.

Origin: Folktales about kappa musume are found in many parts of Japan. While the minor details differ, the general pattern is the same: a cute young girl shows up and some kind humans offer her food. Eventually the humans suspect she may be a kappa and end up betraying her. Her disguise revealed, she runs away and never returns.

Legends: Long ago in Hayakawa, Yamanashi, there was a husband and wife who lived by the riverside. One April, as they were preparing to plant their garden, a strange young girl suddenly approached them from out of nowhere. They invited her to their home and offered her some tea and yams. Although she eagerly spoke to them, they could not understand anything she said. She was clearly not a girl from their village.

The couple consulted with other villagers about what to do with the girl. Someone suggested that she might actually be a kappa disguised as a human girl. The couple were so creeped out by this thought that they decided to test the girl by feeding her something that kappa hate: the juice of a bottle gourd.

The next day, the young girl visited their house again. They once again offered her tea, but this time they mixed it with some bottle gourd juice. The girl gulped down the tea; but as soon as she had done so, her face turned a sickly green. She clamped her hands over her mouth and ran to the river, disappearing into the depths.

The couple thought, “Aha! She was a kappa!” But they didn’t feel relieved; in fact, for a long time they wondered if they had done something bad. After all, the girl hadn’t done anything wrong…

In Gunma Prefecture, near the uppear reaches of the Kiryū River, there was a cave in which a kappa taking the form of a young girl lived. The nearby villagers all knew that she was a kappa in disguise, but since she was cute, and she never did any harm to them, they let her be. Every now and then when she got hungry, she would go to one of the farmhouses and eat her fill of roasted soybeans. One day, the farmer whose house she visited was all out of roasted soybeans. With no other choice, he filled a small bag full of pebbles and gave it to the young girl. Afterwards, the kappa was never seen again.