Japanese yōkai of abandoned temples
Noderabō
The noderabō is a Japanese yōkai shown in Toriyama Sekien's Gazu Hyakki Yagyō as a monk in a tattered kasa standing beside a temple bell. It is associated with abandoned, ruined temples.
The myth
From the Shōwa period onward, writings about yōkai often explained the noderabō as the vengeful spirit of a chief priest whose temple fell into ruin when villagers stopped giving donations. In the evenings he would return to the deserted temple and ring the bell alone.
Another tale places it in Niiza, Saitama Prefecture, at a spot called Nodera. A man who wanted to menace the villagers tried to steal a famous bell, but while fleeing he hid in a pond and lost sight of the bell. The lake came to be called Kanegabuchi, the "bell abyss". A different version tells of a young monk who, instead of doing a task for the chief priest, played with the children and, ashamed, threw himself into the pond; ever since, a cry has been heard from its waters each evening.
Legacy
The manga artist Mizuki Shigeru recalled that when children heard a bell in the mountains with no temple in sight, adults said it was the noderabō's doing. In fact it was an echo, a phenomenon like the yamabiko.
Ancient sources: It appears in Toriyama Sekien's Gazu Hyakki Yagyō (18th century), which depicts it without explaining what it is.