Inkdog’s Past-Time-4U

牛头 （Cow head）

牛头这个元素经常在宗教中出现，也常出现在日本的很多小说，电影或其他视觉形式中，我至今还不了解牛头的确切意义在哪里，只是早已感觉到它是一种不祥的东西。

03年看了三池崇史的《极道恐怖大剧场：牛头Gokudô kyôfu dai-gekijô: Gozu》，那时盗版商一定对三池大叔不那么熟悉，我只记得买到的那张DVD是非常劣质的印刷，比普通的简装D5更简装，被放在一堆香港烂片之中。我如获至宝，看完以后更是欣喜若狂，因为它让我冒汗，嘴巴一直都合不上。邪行的气氛没有一部我看过的影片可以匹敌。我认为这是三池在艺术造诣上最成功的一部影片，可惜很多人不能理解他的内敛，只能理解他的张力。不过在这个影片中，牛头始终没有真正的出现过，也如日本都市传说中里的那样，始终保持神秘的形象和来源。直到06年，这部影片才正式地被D版，甚至出了D9，在日本独立电影迷中流传开来。

以下是我翻译的一段关于牛头和都市传说的文字：

几个世纪以来，日本一直流传着一个恐怖的鬼故事，让人们闻风丧胆。

这个可怕的传说即是著名的“牛头”，在17世纪早期就已经出现，我们可以在如今的一些记录中看到，但是它的名字却很少被提到，只是被讲述成一个恐怖故事。

故事细节直到今天还是很神秘，因为不幸的是，知情者通常都不能活到把它复述出来。据传闻说，大多读到或听到这个故事的人会日以继夜地被恐惧缠绕，剧烈地战栗直到死去。

尽管人们如今已把它完全当作虚构的流言，但它还是经过一代一代人之口奇异地幸存下来。科幻小说家小松左京（Sakyo Komatsu）根据这个古老的传说，写了一个名为“牛头”的短篇故事之后，一些推测认为这个流言促使了60年代的新生活，但这种主张并无强有力的证据可靠。

不管如何，这个传说会偶尔突然在谈话和网络上出现。

最近的一个都市传说就讲的是一个中学的班级进行一次旅行，教师在巴士上给学生们说恐怖故事解闷，当讲到 “牛头”这个故事的时候，学生们变得非常恐惧不安，很多人捂起了耳朵叫着“别再说了”，但教师还是不停地讲述着，他的眼睛开始无神，好像被一种未知的东西控制了，突然巴士听了下来，教师恢复神志，发现学生们都昏倒了，并且口吐白沫，而司机在不停地寒战着，汗如雨下。

顺手收集了几张怪异的牛头形象：

在追朔牛头源头的同时，惊奇地发现了一个日文的都市传说网站，只是可惜不懂日文，没眼福阅读 了。http://umaibo.net/urbant.html

关于小松左京（Sakyo Komatsu）：http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakyo_Komatsu

翻译原文：

For centuries, rumors have circulated in Japan about a ghost story so horrific that people die of fright soon after hearing it.

The dreadful tale — known as “Cow Head” — appears to date back at least to the early 17th century. Several known written accounts from this era make reference to the awful story, but they merely mention its title and describe it as a tale too terrible to tell.

The actual details of the story remain a mystery to this day, because those with the misfortune of knowing it usually do not live long enough to repeat it. According to the rumors, most people who read or hear the story are overcome with a fear so great that they tremble violently for days on end, until they die.

Although most people nowadays regard the tale as a complete fabrication, rumors of its existence have strangely survived, passing from generation to generation by word of mouth. Some theories suggest the rumors gained new life in the 1960s, after science fiction writer Sakyo Komatsu wrote a short story (titled “Cow Head”) based on the old tale. There is no hard evidence supporting this claim, though.

In any case, references to the rumored story occasionally pop up in conversation and online.

One recent account tells of an elementary school teacher who told the “Cow Head” story to his poor students while the class was on a school trip. According to the account, the teacher was entertaining the students on the bus with ghost stories. The students, who tended to become unruly on long trips, grew remarkably subdued as they listened to the teacher speak. Many of them seemed truly frightened by the stories he told.

After some time, the teacher announced he would tell a tale called “Cow Head.” Before he could finish the first sentence of the story, however, the children began to panic. “Stop!” they cried. “Don’t tell us!” One child turned pale and covered his ears, and the others began to scream. But the teacher did not stop. His eyes went blank and he proceeded with the story as if some unseen force had taken over his mind.

Later, after the teacher regained his senses, he found that the bus had stopped moving. The students had all fainted and were frothing at the mouth. The driver lay slumped over the wheel, sweating and shivering. It is unclear what happened next, except that the teacher never told the story again.