ome one had
squeezed out the lower part of his face, and pulled his nose down so as
to make a beak like a crow's. He is the Dai Tengu's lictor. He carries
the axe of authority over his left shoulder, to chop bad people's heads
off. In his right fist is his master's book of wisdom, and roll of
authority. Even these two highest in authority in Tengu-land are servants
of the great lord Kampira, the long-haired patron of sailors and
mountaineers.

The greatest of the Dai Tengu lived in Kurama mountain and taught
Yoshitsune. This lad, while a pupil in the monastery, would slip out in
the evening, when the priests thought him asleep, and come to the King of
the Tengus, who instructed him in the military arts, in cunning, magic,
and wisdom. Every night the boy would spread the roll of wisdom before
him, and sit at the feet of the hoary-headed tengu, and learn the
strange letters in which tengu wisdom is written, while the long-nosed
servant tengus, propped up on their stilt-clogs, looked on. The boy was
not afraid, but quickly learned the knowledge which birds, beasts and
fishes have, how to understand their language and to fly, swim and leap
like them.

When a tengu stumbles and falls down on his nose, it takes a long while
to heal, and if he breaks it, the doctor puts it in splints like a broken
arm, until it straightens out and heals up again.

Some of the amusements in Tengu-land are very curious. A pair of young
tengus will fence with their noses as if they were foils. Their faces are
well protected by masks, for if one tengu should "poke his nose" into the
other's eye he might put it out, and a blind tengu could not walk about,
because he would be knocking his nose against everything.

Two old tengus with noses nearly two feet long, sometimes try the
strength of their face-handles. One fellow has his beak straight up in
the air like a supporting post, while the other sits a yard off with his
elastic nose stretched across like a tight-rope, and tied with twine at
the top of the other one's nose. On this tight nose-rope a little tengu
boy, with a tiny pug only two inches long, dances a jig. He holds an
umbrella in his hand, now dancing, and now standing upon one foot. The
tengu-daddy, whose nose serves as a tent-pole, waves his fan and sings a
song, keeping time to the dance.

There is another tengu who sometimes quarrels with his wife, and when
angry boxes her ears with his nose.

A lady-tengu who is inclined to be