Sakata no Kintoki- Japanese HeroHero"The Golden Boy"

The Mountain Childhood

Kintarō's mother was Yamauba, a woman of supernatural nature who lived deep in the forests of Mount Ashigara in Sagami Province. She raised the boy among the animals. He was red-skinned and enormously strong from infancy. He wrestled bears and won. He felled trees with his masakari, a broad axe nearly as large as himself, and made companions of the creatures that would have killed an ordinary child.

The warrior Minamoto no Raikō encountered the boy on Mount Ashigara and recognized what he was. He recruited Kintarō as a retainer. Under the name Sakata no Kintoki, the mountain child entered Raikō's service and became one of his Shitennō, his four greatest warriors.

The Demon of Mount Ōe

Kintoki's defining battle came on the expedition against Shuten-dōji, the oni king who had been abducting people from the capital. Raikō and his warriors disguised themselves as yamabushi mountain priests and climbed to Shuten-dōji's fortress on Mount Ōe. They sat with the demon and served him drugged sake until he could no longer stand. Then they attacked. Kintoki, who had spent his childhood grappling with bears, was built for the killing that followed.