Seimei Shrine and Ichijō Modoribashi

What is there

Seimei Shrine was founded in 1007 on the ground where Abe no Seimei, the court’s diviner, is said to have lived. The five-pointed star of his craft is on the lanterns, the charms and the well in the courtyard, and the bellflower that bears the same shape grows in the beds. In the grounds stands a small bridge built from the parts of the old Ichijō Modoribashi, with a figure of the shikigami, the spirits Seimei was said to keep under the real bridge; the real bridge, rebuilt in 1995, crosses the Horikawa canal a hundred metres to the south, a plain concrete span on a busy street.

Why here

The bridge is where Watanabe no Tsuna, riding home one night, met a beautiful woman who asked to be carried, turned into an oni in the air and seized him by the hair; he cut off its arm with his sword, and the oni came back for the arm later in the shape of his aunt. The same bridge is where the dead were said to turn back, which gave it its name. The fox is here too: in the later tales Seimei’s mother was Kuzunoha, the white fox of Shinoda forest, who left her child when he saw her true shape.

Yokai you will meet

• Oni 鬼 — The bridge where the oni's arm was cut off and later reclaimed.
• Kitsune 狐 — Seimei's mother in the later tales was the fox Kuzunoha of Shinoda forest.

Getting there

Imadegawa Station (Kyoto Subway Karasuma Line). About twelve minutes on foot; or city bus to the Ichijō Modoribashi / Seimei-jinja-mae stop.

• Open in Google Maps (external link)
• Open in OpenStreetMap (external link)
• Official site (external link)