Yokai Night Parade 百鬼夜行

信太森葛葉稲荷神社 · Shrine or temple · Izumi, Osaka

Kuzunoha Inari Shrine, Shinoda Forest

The shrine in what is left of Shinoda forest, where the fox wife of the tales looked at herself in the well and went home.

Quick Facts

Type
Shrine or temple
Prefecture
Osaka · Izumi
Nearest station
Kita-Shinoda Station (JR Hanwa Line)
From the station
About five minutes on foot
English signage
none
Opening hours and admission
No official site listed · information checked on 2026-11-03

Hours, admission and closing days change, and this site does not list them. The link goes to the place's own page, with the date we last checked it.

The worship hall of Kuzunoha Inari Shrine in Shinoda forest
Photo: KENPEI, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (external link)

What is there

The shrine stands in a grove beside Kita-Shinoda station, the last remnant of the forest of Shinoda that once covered the plain. A great camphor tree, said to be a thousand years old, shades the courtyard; a well called the mirror well is where the fox is said to have seen her own shape; and fox figures stand at every corner of the grounds. The station is five minutes’ walk away.

Why here

Abe no Yasuna saved a white fox from hunters in this forest; the fox took the form of a woman, Kuzunoha, married him and bore him a son. When the boy saw her true shape she wrote a poem of farewell on the paper door, “if you miss me, come and look in Shinoda forest of Izumi”, and went back to the trees. The son grew up to be the diviner Seimei. The puppet play of 1734 made the tale famous, and the shrine is the forest of the poem.

Yokai you will meet

  • Kitsune 狐 — The forest of the fox wife Kuzunoha and the well where she saw her true shape.

Getting there

Kita-Shinoda Station (JR Hanwa Line). About five minutes on foot.

Sources and further reading

  1. Database Shinoda-no-mori Kuzunoha Inari Shrine (信太森葛葉稲荷神社) (external link) Wikipedia (Japanese) The shrine in Shinoda forest, the camphor tree, the mirror well and access from Kita-Shinoda.
  2. Database Kuzunoha (葛の葉) (external link) Wikipedia (Japanese) The fox wife of Shinoda forest, the farewell poem and the 1734 puppet play.

Other places with these yokai

Other places in Osaka

  • Nuezuka, the Nue Mound 鵺塚（都島） Site Osaka (Miyakojima), Osaka — A small stone mound between the houses of Miyakojima, where the nue's body was said to have washed ashore and been buried.
  • Abe Seimei Shrine, Osaka 安倍晴明神社（大阪） Shrine or temple Osaka (Abeno), Osaka — The small shrine in Abeno that claims the diviner's birthplace, with his statue and the fox of his mother on the tablets.