Picture of Hakamadare Yasusuke and Kidōmaru Competing with Magic

According to Japanese folklore, Kidōmaru was an ogre who lived on Mount Ōe, northwest of Kyoto. The novelist Takizawa Bakin (Kyokutei; 1767–1848), in his book Strange Records of the Four Heavenly Kings and a Plundering Thief (Shitennō shōtō iroku), has Kidōmaru meet the thief Hakamadare Yasusuke. In a cave in the mountains, the two embark on a magic competition to compare their techniques. Hakamadare is towering in the air, standing on a snake he commands, while Kidōmaru is sitting below him on a rock, wrapped pine-sprigs in his mouth, sending out an attack of his tengu (mountain goblins).