English: Ningyo mermaid appeared from water before Prince Shōtoku as he visited the reed plain at Ishideramura (石寺村) [in Ganmō district 蒲生郡], Ōmi Province. This serves as a foundation myth of the "Kan'onji temple" [sic.] of the province, usually identified as Kannonshō-ji (as Catigliogni 2021), but purported to be Ishibaji (石場寺 [sic.]) in Saigoku sanjusansho kannon reijōki zue^[1] Upper scenery signed Hiroshige II, lower mermaid signedd Toyokuni III aka Kunisada.

  Castiglioni describes the image as being "gendered as a beautiful young lady with a blue carp tail protruding from the lower part of a white tunic, the turquoise stole of which shows a shining scaly design".^[2]

  The visual rendition of it looking like the Kannon goddess is clearly an embellishment, and this ningyo, meaning "human-fish" likely did not have maiden's from in the original telling. It had turned into this half-fish form as bad karma for slaughtering in past life as a human, according to the accompanying text here, and other sources say it used to be a fisherman (presumably male) at Katada; this source is quoted by Castiglioni, but concerning a different matter: the "human-fish" upon death revealed to the Prince in a dream its corpse was floating on water; the cadaver was recovered and became a mummy relic on display at Kannonshō-ji.