The evil spirits appear as monkeys in most instances of the tale, as in the version of "Shippei Taro" given in Keigo Seki's anthology (translated into English 1963).

Monkey God tales preserved in the medieval anthologies Konjaku Monogatarishū and Uji Shūi Monogatari have been suggested as being the original sources of the orally disseminated versions.

The term shippei (竹篦) denotes a "bamboo staff" in Zen Buddhism,[8] and is connected with the expression shippegaeshi meaning "repercussion" or "backlash".

[15] The form Shippeitarō (悉平太郎) (of uncertain meaning) has been adopted as standard or official one for the dog of legend attached to the Yanahime jinja [ja] shrine, commonly known as Mitsuke Tenjin.

James version:[5][35] A young adventure-seeking warrior entered an enchanted forest, and he slept in a shrine (or chapel) there,[c] and was awakened at midnight by the noises of cats yelling and dancing.

[44][g] However, cats did feature as the antagonist(s) of Shippeitarō in the gesaku novels of the Edo Period (§Old printed books) as well as in the kabuki and kyōgen performing arts.

Also, it is a common motif that the household chosen to have their daughter sacrificed (by the supernatural beings) has a shiraha no ya [ja] (white-feather fletched arrow) stuck on the front of their home.

[47] Keigo Seki collected a number of variant tales (of the Sarugami taiji or "Destroying the Monkey Demon" type) from various sources.

He used the usual tactic of replacing the sacrificial maiden inside the chest with Shippei Taro, a dog brought from the distant city of Nagahama in Ōmi Province.

The dog's name may be only a slight variant of Shippeitaro, such as (Suppeitarō, Suppetarō (すっぺい太郎, 素平太郎, すっぺ太郎), or an alternate reading (Takeberatarō[k]) or altogether different.

[57] One etymological hypothesis is that in the Shinano dialect, haibō (ハイ坊) denoted "wolf cub", which probably gave rise to the name Heibōtarō, and Hayatarō may well be a further corruption of this.

[59] But in actuality, the name of the dog in the legend attached to the shrine (Yanahime jinja aka Mitsuke Tenjin in Iwata, Shizuoka) varied, and was also known alternately by the similar names Shippūtarō/Hayatetarō (疾風太郎, 'swift wind Tarō') or Hayatarō (早太郎, 'swift Tarō'),[17] as already noted (§Nomenclature)[l] In an old document, Tōtōmi koseki zue (遠江古蹟圖繪) by dating to Kyowa 3 (1803),[m] the legendary dog of this shrine at Mitsuke-juku was Yazaemon (弥左衛門).

[60] However, Ichikawa Danjūrō VII[n] in a piece of document entitled Tōtōmimasu (遠〱見ます[遠ゝ見ます]) (Tenpo 3/1832) wrote that the local tradition called the dog Shippeitarō (しっぺい太郎) of Tanba Province.

[67] Nagata also hypothesizes that "every dog comes from Shinshū(Shinano) in Sarugami taiji tales of Shizukoa, and this can hardly be unconnected with Kōzen-ji ".

And Tokiwa Aoshima supposed that the legend was created after the occasions of the Yanahime-jinja shrine sending 600 volumes of sutra to Kōzen-ji in 1793, and the temple holding a kaichō (public display of its sacred objects) in 1794.

[73] Though these hypotheses require further analysis to assay their validity,[74] if the latter were true, then there was always a connection between the shrine legend and Kōzen-ji, though unattested by the Edo period documents found by Yabe.

[75][12][76][p] In the version collected from the former Akahomura [ja] village where the temple stands, the victims are to be left as sacrifice on the altar of the Tenmangū in Enshū,[75][77] which is an apt description of the Yanahime jinja (Mitsuke Tenjin) in Shizuoka.

[47] In the tale version printed by Toshio Takagi (1913) where the dog's name is "Heibōtarō" (兵坊太郎),[q] the victim chosen is visited upon by a "fire pillar" in a place called Fushimi in the local Shinano Province.

[86][87] English translations of this medieval version is found in S. W. Jones's Ages Ago: Thirty-Seven Tales from the Konjaku Monogatari Collection (1959),[88] and Michelle Osterfeld Li's study Ambiguous Bodies.

[91][92] There is also a kibyōshi type printed book from the Edo Period, the Zōho Shippeitarō (1796) meaning the "expanded version" that was written by Nansenshō Somahito (南杣笑そまひと) with illustrations by ukiyo-e artist Toyokuni.

[20][46] This book illustrates spirits of the monkey, fox, kappa, tanuki (raccoon dog), hare, and wolf kind devouring the human sacrifice, and in the culminating scene depicts Shippeitarō defeating wolves,[20][93] but no cat is featured.

[46] Yet in Ritsujōtei Kiran [ja]'s yomihon Inuneko kaiwa Shippeitarō (犬猫怪話竹箆太郎) ( Bunka 6/1809), the cat features as boss, with the kappa, tanuki and fox also in the mix.

(Bunsei 12/1829), which was expanded by Tamenaga Shunsui II [ja] into his gōkan (late type, lengthy kusazōshi) entitled Mukashibanashi Shippekitarō (昔話室璧太郎) (first and second installations printed Ansei 3/1856).

[63] Later Mokuami wrote the revised work Gojūsantsugi ōgi no shukuzuke (五十三驛扇宿附) (First performed Meiji 20/1887), where the children's chant "Do not tell Shippeitarō of Tanba [Province]" (丹波のしっぺい太郎に沙汰するな) is written into the script.