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妖怪臺灣
妖怪臺灣：三百年島嶼奇幻誌‧妖鬼神遊卷
作家何敬堯＋漫畫家張季雅聯合共同打造
第一本臺灣本土妖怪百科全書！
痴情的蛇郎君、可憐的椅仔姑、含冤而死的墓坑鳥、
遇人不淑的林投姐、呵呵笑的人面魚、愛打掃的金魅……
229個妖鬼神＋42幅黑白插畫
盡在《妖怪臺灣：三百年島嶼奇幻誌‧妖鬼神遊卷》一覽無餘
本書特別收入全彩拉頁〈百妖出陣圖〉
‧獲獎無數的奇幻／歷史小說家何敬堯，花費3年構思、查找、編寫。
‧從臺灣的大航海時代、明鄭時代、清朝時代、到日本時代，橫跨321年。
‧囊括西方人、漢人、日本人的文字記載，甚至包含原住民奇譚故事。
‧分為「妖怪」、「鬼魅」、「神靈」三大類，共計229個形象鮮明、故事動人的臺灣特有妖鬼。
‧新銳漫畫家張季雅，投入一年心血，深入鑽研，並融合臺灣島人文歷史風貌，以唯美畫風呈現其中最知名的42個妖怪。
關於世界各地妖怪的記錄：歐洲有古斯塔夫‧斯威布的《古代最美的傳說》，這就是現今流傳古希臘神話妖怪傳說的通俗讀物《希臘神話故事》的蒐集者；日本有柳田國男《遠野物語》，桃山人的《繪本百物語》，小泉八雲的《怪談》，日本當今所有的妖怪故事可以說都源流於此；中國的《山海經》，筆記小說，聊齋故事，則成為現今中國文化裡的通俗怪譚。
第一本臺灣本土妖怪百科全書！
痴情的蛇郎君、可憐的椅仔姑、含冤而死的墓坑鳥、
遇人不淑的林投姐、呵呵笑的人面魚、愛打掃的金魅……
229個妖鬼神＋42幅黑白插畫
盡在《妖怪臺灣：三百年島嶼奇幻誌‧妖鬼神遊卷》一覽無餘
本書特別收入全彩拉頁〈百妖出陣圖〉
‧獲獎無數的奇幻／歷史小說家何敬堯，花費3年構思、查找、編寫。
‧從臺灣的大航海時代、明鄭時代、清朝時代、到日本時代，橫跨321年。
‧囊括西方人、漢人、日本人的文字記載，甚至包含原住民奇譚故事。
‧分為「妖怪」、「鬼魅」、「神靈」三大類，共計229個形象鮮明、故事動人的臺灣特有妖鬼。
‧新銳漫畫家張季雅，投入一年心血，深入鑽研，並融合臺灣島人文歷史風貌，以唯美畫風呈現其中最知名的42個妖怪。
關於世界各地妖怪的記錄：歐洲有古斯塔夫‧斯威布的《古代最美的傳說》，這就是現今流傳古希臘神話妖怪傳說的通俗讀物《希臘神話故事》的蒐集者；日本有柳田國男《遠野物語》，桃山人的《繪本百物語》，小泉八雲的《怪談》，日本當今所有的妖怪故事可以說都源流於此；中國的《山海經》，筆記小說，聊齋故事，則成為現今中國文化裡的通俗怪譚。
628 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 5, 2017
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
December 28, 2025
I had to rely on a translation app to read this book so it took me a long time to finish this book and reading it was quite a project as it took me months to finish it. It was worth it in many ways, but I also think the author could have structured it better, I don't think structuring it in chapters by time period was the best idea.
Some things here were already familiar to me, like mentioning small, black, little people and subterranian humans. I had seen stories about them before. And I know the feeling of people ignoring native monsters over imported ones. I also do wonder how much of this here was influenced by japan anyway when he says that ghosts become goblins, because I think this is rather unusual for chinese stories, that is something I saw more common in japanese and aboriginal stories. Also, I wondered how many of these featured monsters were born specifically out of the Han encounter with the nature of Taiwan as the text here suggests. Sadly, the google translate has it limits and so sometimes the text is a bit odd. And so I cannot guarantee that I got everything right, e.g. I think the island Nanyu (one of the Penghu islands) was once inhabited by a "shark race" and apparently these were people with fish tails and stories were documented ever since dutch colonial times, and a mermaid appearing seemed to have foretold calamity and it was shortly before Guo Xingye (Koxinga) led his troops to Taiwan. Combine that with the human faced fishboy and I am reminded of japanese mermaids. And I think on the island of Xiaoliqui there is a sort of barbarbic humans or black spirit that has gills like a fish.
I mostly could do without historical references but it was interesting to read that most taiwanese cattle breeds originate from the cattle that the Dutch introduced after 1624. Did not expect that. And apparently due to their agricultural significance they are featured in taiwanese folklore and I read about this big ox causing earthquakes before. Hm, reading it before, I thought they were referring to a buffalo. And like I said, the information was interesting but the book was so oddly structured in the beginning. The author seemed to talk about indigenous spirits battling with those brought by the Han colonists, then about the 5 kinds of dragons of Taiwan, then taiwanese horror novels and I wondered why, especially since it seemed to be the end of the first chapter, in fact it was the foreword. Granted, this was where some of the really interesting things started, like the ghost market in Penghu allegedly going back as far as the Tang empire. Of course, I was not sure, the app really struggled with the traditional chinese letters apparently, so I had to check several times whether the Vaishya people mentioned do sound like birds and look like evil ghosts. And I did wonder whether some things like 17th century records or later some things about this or that person or this or that god were really necessary/relevant here. Stories about sika deer turning into sharks (or the other way around) that was what I was coming here for. Naturally there were some surprises here as I did not expect that the author would also collect stories from the Dutch about mermaids. Albeit I know th aborigines around the Sun and Moon Lake also have mermaid tales, so perhaps this is not solely dutch in origin.
Sadly, whenever the book came to the topic of gods, it got really boring for me and so I was even in danger of falling asleep over it. So it was no surprise to me that I basically forgot everything about it. The sections on the various supernatural critters was simply more interesting for me. Albeit those could come with their own set of frustrations, but that is not the fault of the author, as the source material simply wasn't good, after all if some animal that can either predict storms and earthquakes or causes them is only described as having a single horn, what can you really do? And sadly I had to rely on an APP to translate the text and I am sure that it often had problems with the text, since I seriously doubt there were any cars during the Ming and Qing times in Taiwan, spinning or not. I often had to give the app several tries to get a coherent translation.
Luckily, from there the book got better, there was a fire crocodile in Penghu, a yellow dragon that brings drought and famine, then a wood dragon that emerges from the keel of a ship and protects it, butterflies send by the heavens to warn you of danger and a race of sharkpeople. Albeit that is nothing compared to horseshoe crabs transforming into men and women to "embrace" each other in the sea or some hovering bull monster in Anping. Granted, the assortment of beings in this book is a big chaotic but there were so many and a really rich source of information.
Some things here were already familiar to me, like mentioning small, black, little people and subterranian humans. I had seen stories about them before. And I know the feeling of people ignoring native monsters over imported ones. I also do wonder how much of this here was influenced by japan anyway when he says that ghosts become goblins, because I think this is rather unusual for chinese stories, that is something I saw more common in japanese and aboriginal stories. Also, I wondered how many of these featured monsters were born specifically out of the Han encounter with the nature of Taiwan as the text here suggests. Sadly, the google translate has it limits and so sometimes the text is a bit odd. And so I cannot guarantee that I got everything right, e.g. I think the island Nanyu (one of the Penghu islands) was once inhabited by a "shark race" and apparently these were people with fish tails and stories were documented ever since dutch colonial times, and a mermaid appearing seemed to have foretold calamity and it was shortly before Guo Xingye (Koxinga) led his troops to Taiwan. Combine that with the human faced fishboy and I am reminded of japanese mermaids. And I think on the island of Xiaoliqui there is a sort of barbarbic humans or black spirit that has gills like a fish.
I mostly could do without historical references but it was interesting to read that most taiwanese cattle breeds originate from the cattle that the Dutch introduced after 1624. Did not expect that. And apparently due to their agricultural significance they are featured in taiwanese folklore and I read about this big ox causing earthquakes before. Hm, reading it before, I thought they were referring to a buffalo. And like I said, the information was interesting but the book was so oddly structured in the beginning. The author seemed to talk about indigenous spirits battling with those brought by the Han colonists, then about the 5 kinds of dragons of Taiwan, then taiwanese horror novels and I wondered why, especially since it seemed to be the end of the first chapter, in fact it was the foreword. Granted, this was where some of the really interesting things started, like the ghost market in Penghu allegedly going back as far as the Tang empire. Of course, I was not sure, the app really struggled with the traditional chinese letters apparently, so I had to check several times whether the Vaishya people mentioned do sound like birds and look like evil ghosts. And I did wonder whether some things like 17th century records or later some things about this or that person or this or that god were really necessary/relevant here. Stories about sika deer turning into sharks (or the other way around) that was what I was coming here for. Naturally there were some surprises here as I did not expect that the author would also collect stories from the Dutch about mermaids. Albeit I know th aborigines around the Sun and Moon Lake also have mermaid tales, so perhaps this is not solely dutch in origin.
Sadly, whenever the book came to the topic of gods, it got really boring for me and so I was even in danger of falling asleep over it. So it was no surprise to me that I basically forgot everything about it. The sections on the various supernatural critters was simply more interesting for me. Albeit those could come with their own set of frustrations, but that is not the fault of the author, as the source material simply wasn't good, after all if some animal that can either predict storms and earthquakes or causes them is only described as having a single horn, what can you really do? And sadly I had to rely on an APP to translate the text and I am sure that it often had problems with the text, since I seriously doubt there were any cars during the Ming and Qing times in Taiwan, spinning or not. I often had to give the app several tries to get a coherent translation.
Luckily, from there the book got better, there was a fire crocodile in Penghu, a yellow dragon that brings drought and famine, then a wood dragon that emerges from the keel of a ship and protects it, butterflies send by the heavens to warn you of danger and a race of sharkpeople. Albeit that is nothing compared to horseshoe crabs transforming into men and women to "embrace" each other in the sea or some hovering bull monster in Anping. Granted, the assortment of beings in this book is a big chaotic but there were so many and a really rich source of information.
Displaying 1 of 1 review