The dictionary definition of imp at Wiktionary, Mythological being similar to a demon or fairy, Learn how and when to remove this template message, Treatises on the Apparitions of Spirits and on Vampires or Revenants, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Imp&oldid=982721083, Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica with Wikisource reference, Articles needing additional references from June 2014, All articles needing additional references, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 9 October 2020, at 22:24. If you haven’t already been waylaid by fairies, pixies, or goblins on your trip through Europe’s lovely countryside, you will almost certainly be targeted by Imps.

In the live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III movie, the turtles were viewed as "Kappa" when they traveled back in time to Feudal Japan. It was an interesting movie, but I always wondered about the “true story” part. Imps are generally carefully hidden, with patient or extremely interested observers being the sole people to spot them.

Ever since she began contributing to the site several years ago, Mary has embraced the Kappas are a recurring image in David Peace's novel Patient X,[41] about the life and work of Ryūnosuke Akutagawa.

General Information An imp is basically a goblin or bogie. An Imp can take on nearly any appearance that a greater Demon may take on, except diminutive in size.

In 1981, the internationally acclaimed storyteller Robert Louis Stevenson published a tale called “The Bottle Imp,” which featured a crafty, entertaining, and magical spirit trapped in a bottle, and in the 2000s, Jonathan Stroud included Imps in a series of novels about the reluctant servitude, and frequent hijinks, of magical beings enslaved to humans.

@miriam98 - Yes, that ancient alien theory gets a lot of air time on some cable channels from time to time. The tiny, gargoyle-like creatures peep from the buttresses of giant cathedrals, leer down from the stonework over grand entryways, and crowd around tombs, where they are fended off by angels.

Take your favorite fandoms with you and never miss a beat. Their skin, ranging in color from purple to red-brown to gray, may be scaly or stone-like, and they walk with an unpleasant hunch. The word may perhaps derive from the term ympe, used to denote a young grafted tree.

The behavior of imps is said to be wild and often out of control, and many myths depict the creatures reveling in pranks and jokes, leading to the use of the word “impish” to describe people who are fond of mischief. Once befriended, kappa may perform any number of tasks for human beings, such as helping farmers irrigate their land. Pronouncing these words in a dignified tone They were not always evil back then, but always mischevious. [18], In Edo (old Tokyo), there used to be a tradition where people would write the names of their family members on cucumbers and send them afloat into the streams to mollify the kappa, to prevent the family from coming to harm in the streams. [34], The best known place where it has been claimed Kappa reside is in the Kappabuchi [ja] waters of Tōno in the Iwate Prefecture. This girl sees fairies in her backyard, and of course her parents and their friends are skeptical at first.

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As for them being real, I don't think it's any more fantastic to believe in imps and space aliens than it is to believe in angels. I think it started years ago with that book Chariots of the Gods.

A kappa (河童, river-child)—also known as kawatarō (川太郎, "river-boy"), komahiki (駒引, horse-puller), kawatora (川虎, river-tiger) or suiko (水虎, water-tiger)–is an amphibious yōkai demon or imp found in traditional Japanese folklore. Some myths also describe imps as trapped inside objects, such as swords, books, and crystal balls.

The Siyokoy of the Philippine islands is also known for kidnapping children by the water's edge. The Japanese folklore creature Kappa is known in Chinese folklore as 水鬼[37] "Shui Gui", Water Ghost, or water monkey and may also be related to the Kelpie of Scotland and the Neck of Scandinavia. This trait led to using the word “impish” for someone who loves pranks and practical jokes. In Germanic folklore, an imp or sometimes daemon is a small demon who is more mischievous than harmful.Various versions of imps appear in the folklore of some other regions of the world as well, often as attendants to gods.

Unique traits What’s strange is that some people believe these creatures exist, more their fairy tale counterparts, living in the subterranean regions of the Earth. Imps have also been described as being able to be "bound" or contained in some sort of object, such as a sword or crystal ball and summoned only when their masters had need of them. CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of October 2020 (, Learn how and when to remove this template message, International Research Center for Japanese Studies. [23], Lafcadio Hearn wrote of a story in Kawachimura near Matsue where a horse-stealing kappa was captured and made to write a sworn statement vowing never to harm people again.

At times, these pranks may be harmless, but they can also be dangerous or upsetting, as in the case of an imp which leads people astray in marshes. An imp is a European mythological being similar to a fairy or demon, frequently described in folklore and superstition. Oversized ears and horns sprout from their heads, just as leathery, bat-like wings sprout from their shoulders.