Abura-akago

Toriyama Sekien's Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki records a local tale from Ōtsu in Ōmi Province that long ago an oil merchant stole oil nightly from the Jizō at the Ōtsu crossroads; when he died his soul became a flame. Sekien presents a note linking that flame‑story (abura‑nusumi no hi) to an infant figure that laps oil from lamps and suggests the baby‑figure may be the reborn soul of the oil‑stealer. Later yōkai compendia and commentators treat this as a folkloric etiological account and as part of a cluster of oil‑related yōkai narrative motifs rather than as a demonstrable historical fact.

Sekien's illustration shows an infant spirit lapping oil from an andon lamp; his accompanying note describes a flying ball‑like fire in Hatchō, Ōtsu. Later yōkai literature summarizes the creature as alternating between a ball of flame (mysterious fire/abura‑nusumi no hi) and a baby that briefly shapeshifts to lick andon lanterns before returning to flame and departing.

Primary behavior recorded in Sekien and later sources is the licking or sucking of oil from lamps. Sources describe a duality or alternation: a flying, ball‑like fire that at times assumes the appearance of a baby to take oil, then reverts to flame and leaves. Sekien frames this behavior as the postmortem repetition of an oil merchant's theft of a roadside Jizō's oil. Modern commentators note mundane explanations (for example, animals such as cats licking fish‑oil lamps) as possible rationalizations for the sightings and imagery.