Tengu Sabaki (The Tengu's Judgement)
天狗裁き・てんぐさばき
The story
A man dozing through an afternoon nap is grilled by his wife about what he was dreaming. 'I wasn't dreaming anything,' he insists, but she refuses to believe him, and a trifling marital squabble breaks out. The neighbor who steps in to make peace, then the landlord, and even a magistrate, each in turn presses him to reveal the contents of the dream.
What to listen for
The escalating absurdity of being ordered to recount 'a dream he never had,' as the demand passes from wife to neighbor to landlord to magistrate and finally to a tengu — each questioner grander than the last. The delight is in the same situation repeated while the opponent keeps swelling in size.
Background
A tengu is a mountain goblin of Japanese folklore, usually pictured as a red-faced mountain ascetic with supernatural powers, and long said in old tales to spirit people away.
Notable performers
桂枝雀五代目柳家小さん