Teoi Hebi

Teoi Hebi is a Japanese Yokai monster illustrated in a abook "Ehon Hyaku Monogatari" in 1841.

Snake is thought as very persistent animal living in shadow and humid, once disturbed or hurt, snake would chase the one anywhere and avenge.

In one village, villagers were digging soil to build a shrine for Inari. One snake came out of where they dig, kids immediately found and started to treat the snake brutally like smacking and ripping til it died. The headman of the village saw this and feared of what the kids did to the snake.
In the night, the headman felt something breathing right beside his pillow and woke up. There was the dead snake staring at the headman. The head man called people to take the snake out, but everyone else except the head man can not see the snake. Since then, the headman lie in sick for a long time, but none of the kids had any problem at all. This was because the headman feared of snake's curse and curse will come to whoever believes, if the headman didn't believe it, he would've been just fine.