Namazu-e, Earthquake Catfish

Courtesy of Pink Tentacle comes this rather wonderful woodblock of namazu-e, literally “catfish pictures”. A whole fashion arose for these depictions after the 1855 Ansei Earthquake in Edo,  arising from an old folk tale that blamed seismic events on the thrashing of giant, troglodyte catfish usually kept in check by the god Kashima.

Apart from being utterly delightful, and entirely in line with my own taste, this particular picture puts me in mind of an anachronistic reference to the Hellboy universe, particularly the frog monsters that plague the BPRD in both the main comic and its titular spin-off.

I can imagine Hellboy, stopping to talk a sup from the water-butt on a foot pilgrimage around Shikoku, or somewhere similar, and finding this resting against the wall of a nearby temple, and feeling a shiver running down his prodigious vertebrae.