Tachikawa Folktales and Legends: A History Walk Through Old Stories

The voice on Hidarui Slope

In a certain household, a servant was worked hard without being given enough to eat, and died. After that, at night, a voice could be heard crying “Hidaruuui, hidaruuui,” and the place came to be called Hidarui-zaka — Hidarui Slope.

Hidarui is an old word meaning starving, unbearably hungry. This story in the database is recorded as told by a Tachikawa teller. Where the slope was cannot be told from the record.

The fox stories have laughter in them, the escort wolf has comedy. But this story leaves no room for laughter. The voice of a person who died hungry lingers on a night slope. The story says plainly who was at fault. Folktales must sometimes have served as the accusation that villagers found hard to say out loud. They carved it into the name of a slope.

The Amida Buddha that flew from the flames: a Shibasaki miracle recorded by Nanpo

Among Tachikawa’s legends there is one written down by a first-rate man of letters from Edo.

That in 1809 (Bunka 6) Ota Nanpo, a shogunate official and celebrated writer, visited the residence of the Nakajima family, headmen of Shibasaki village, is told in this series’ piece on Fusai-ji Temple and Suwa Shrine. That Nanpo’s essay collection Kogaoka Kanwa contains a story about Shibasaki village, I did not know until I looked into it.

According to the database’s summary, it goes like this. The honji-butsu of the Hachiman Shrine, the guardian shrine of Shibasaki village in Tama district, Musashi Province — the Buddha regarded as the “original form” of the shrine’s Shinto deity — was made by Kobo Daishi and works great miracles. Long ago, when the hall burned down in a fire, the sacred image flew off somewhere. When the hall was rebuilt in the Hoei era (1704–1711), the foot of a pine tree in the grounds was shining, and when they dug there, it appeared. When it was stolen, too, it suddenly came back one day.

Flies away from the flames, is found glowing at the foot of a pine, comes back by itself even when stolen. A remarkably self-reliant Buddha.

This honji-butsu of the Hachiman Shrine really exists. According to the City of Tachikawa’s description, the Hachiman Shrine was built in 1252 (Kencho 4) as the clan shrine of the Tachikawa family, and was burned in field fires in 1586 (Tensho 14) and 1824 (Bunsei 7). The honji-butsu is a seated gilt-bronze Amida Nyorai (Amitabha Buddha) about 16 centimetres tall, and an inscription on its back shows that it was dedicated by Onene, a woman of the household of Tachikawa Terushige, to restore the shrine burned in the field fire of 1586. It is now designated a cultural property of the city and is held by Suwa Shrine. The story of that inscription is told in detail in this series’ piece on the old villages.

Here, I stopped to think. The legend says “made by Kobo Daishi.” The inscription says dedicated in 1586. Kobo Daishi — the monk Kukai — lived in the Heian period, so as they stand the two don’t fit. Perhaps the legend borrowed the name of the greatest possible maker to raise the Buddha’s standing. Or perhaps it is a story about a different Buddha from the one with the inscription. I could not decide either way.

Only one thing is certain. A woman dedicated a Buddha for a shrine burned in a field fire in the Tensho era, and that Buddha passed through fire after fire and survives to this day. No wonder the villagers wanted to say that the 16-centimetre Amida evacuated itself somewhere with every fire and then came back.

Two Shibasaki villages, and Masakado’s head

While researching Nanpo’s story, I very nearly made a big mistake.

Search the same database for “Shibasaki” (芝崎), and another, frightening story comes up. It is the summary of an Edo-period essay: the spirit of Taira no Masayori, younger brother of Taira no Masakado, lingered on the battlefield and brought curses on people, and later a monk of the line of the holy man Ippen built a hermitage in Shibasaki village and held memorial rites. Oh — the vengeful ghost of Masakado’s clan, in Tachikawa’s Shibasaki village! For a moment my heart leapt.

But no. According to the encyclopedia entry on the Masakado-zuka, the area around the Masakado-zuka in Otemachi, where Taira no Masakado’s head is said to have been laid to rest, was once called Shibasaki village in Toshima district, Musashi Province, and its residents long suffered from Masakado’s vengeful spirit. In 1307 (Tokuji 2), Taa Shinkyo of the Ji sect tended the mound and converted the nearby Nichirin-ji Temple into the Ji sect’s Shibasaki Dojo. The Shibasaki village of the Masakado legend was in the middle of Edo — the Shibasaki village of present-day Otemachi.

Musashi Province had two Shibasaki villages. One in Tama district, later Tachikawa. One in Toshima district, later Otemachi. One had Masakado’s head mound; the other had an Amida Buddha that flew from fires. And the Shibasaki village of Tama district changed its name to Tachikawa village in 1881 (Meiji 14) — because there was another Shibasaki village in the same district, which was confusing, as this series’ piece on town names explains. Tachikawa’s Shibasaki, it seems, was a village fated to get mixed up with its name.

Look for Masakado’s curse in Tachikawa and you won’t find it. But the fact that Otemachi, home of the most famous head mound in Japan, and Tachikawa were once villages of the same name is not a bad story to have in your pocket.

The false charge pinned on the name “Tachikawa”: the legend of the Tachikawa-ryu

Of all the legends that carry Tachikawa’s name, the best known outside Tachikawa is the Shingon Buddhist “Tachikawa-ryu” (Tachikawa school).

The city’s history-compilation newsletter has taken up this story twice. According to issue 21, the “Tachikawa-ryu” is a lineage of teachings whose founder was Ninkan, the younger brother of Shokaku, regarded as the founder of the Sanbo-in lineage of Daigo-ji Temple. Ninkan was caught up in a political struggle and exiled to Izu, where he took disciples and passed on his teachings. This lineage later came to be called the “Tachikawa-ryu.”

The problem is its reputation. The widely known “Tachikawa-ryu” is a disreputable heresy that treats sexual union between men and women as a secret technique of enlightenment. According to the newsletter, what fixed that image was the Hokyosho, written in 1375 by a monk named Yukai. The Hokyosho attacked the Tachikawa-ryu, claiming a heresy had been started by a “yin-yang diviner of Tachikawa in Musashi Province” who had received the teachings from Ninkan.

But recent research introduced by the newsletter paints a completely different picture. According to scholars who closely examined documents handed down at Shomyo-ji Temple in Yokohama, the Tachikawa-ryu that began with Ninkan was not especially eccentric compared with other Shingon lineages, and no heretical ideas can be found in it. Shinkai, the first chief priest of Shomyo-ji and a monk who placed great weight on the monastic precepts, also inherited this lineage. The heresy attacked in the Juho Yojinshu of 1268 was a different group from the Tachikawa-ryu, never even named in the documents but referred to only as “that teaching.” And no person called “the yin-yang diviner of Tachikawa in Musashi Province” can be confirmed among Ninkan’s disciples, the newsletter writes.

In other words, it comes to this. A medieval book took the disreputable name of a group other than a certain lineage, laid it over that lineage, and attributed its founding to “the diviner of Tachikawa.” The Tachikawa-ryu dwindled amid that criticism and seems to have died out by the middle of the Edo period. There is a theory linking Ninkan’s disciple to Tachikawa in Musashi, but that too still needs examination, it says.

The name of the place called Tachikawa may have carried, for some 650 years, a rumour it had nothing to do with. And now the city’s history project is trying to clear that false charge by rereading the documents one by one. I know of no other case of a city newsletter examining a medieval legend bearing its own town’s name this carefully. It is work the people of Tachikawa can be proud of.

A mound for worshipping Fuji, and a fox shrine that may be an ancient tomb

Legends survive not only in stories but in the shape of the ground.

In Fujizuka Park in Fujimi-cho 1-chome there is a small hill called a tsuka (mound), with a Sengen Shrine — a shrine to the deity of Mount Fuji — on top. According to a survey compiled by the folklore and topography section of the city-history project, the name “Fushizuka” appears in a copy of the 1667 (Kanbun 7) land survey register of Shibasaki village. The shape of the hill is clearly drawn on the 1804 (Kyowa 4) map of Shibasaki village too. A sacred tree stood on top of the mound from before the war, but according to elderly residents it had stood there as a dead tree since the Meiji era, and its age is unknown. That tree fell in a typhoon in the autumn of 1948. The people of the neighbourhood association asked the chief priest of Suwa Shrine to give them the fallen tree, and in November 1950 they built a shrine to the Sengen deity on top of the mound.

What is interesting is that no tradition or record of a Fuji-ko has been found for this Fuji mound. Fuji-ko were confraternities of Mount Fuji worship that became popular from the middle of the Edo period, and Fuji mounds were usually built by them. The survey writes that the Fuji mound of Fujimi-cho can probably be considered one of the examples worshipped before the Fuji-ko became popular. It also records the story that old houses in Fujimi-cho were once built “Fuji-facing” — oriented toward Mount Fuji.

This history, the survey writes, was written down by a local person in May 1952 and rewritten with a brush by another person in 1988 as “The Origins of Fujizuka Sengen Shrine,” and hangs in the entrance lobby of the Nishi-Tachikawa Children’s Hall. That children’s hall was built by the neighbourhood association after the war, to protect children from the moral disorder that came with the stationing of the US forces. Then: a single dead tree stood on top of the mound, and at its foot a place was made for the children of a base town. Now: in the same park, on 23 November, the neighbourhood association sweeps up the fallen leaves and offers mandarins, daikon radishes and bananas, keeping up the Sengen festival. That bananas are among the offerings feels just right for a postwar town.

A tree that stood dead from the Meiji era. Houses built to face Fuji. The town name Fujimi (“Fuji view”) was given because Mount Fuji can be seen so well. The people of Tachikawa, it seems, were always worshipping the mountain in the western sky.

At Sawa Inari in Shibasaki-cho 4-chome there is another mystery in the ground. According to the city’s walking-route guide, deep down a narrow lane between houses, an Inari shrine is enshrined on top of a small mound, long worshipped as the god of the rice paddies. Even now, on the day of Hatsuuma in February (the first “horse day” of the month, Inari’s festival), neighbours raise five-coloured banners and make offerings. And from its shape, the mound is thought possibly to be the tomb of a person who held power here around the 6th or 7th century and had ties to the Yamato court.

In September 2019, the prehistory section of the city-history project probed this mound with ground-penetrating radar. According to issue 12 of the newsletter, the reconstructed mound proved to be 20.8 metres in diameter and more than 1.5 metres high, with a ditch running around it — large even compared with other ancient tombs in the area. The newsletter also notes that it is not unusual for mounds bearing the names of gods or their messengers, such as Kitsunezuka (“fox mound”) Tomb or Inarizuka Tomb, to turn out to be ancient tombs.

Beneath the Inari mound, someone from more than 1,300 years ago may be sleeping. The people raising Hatsuuma banners have, without knowing it, been laying flowers at an ancient grave. In a land with so many fox stories, the fox god’s mound turning out to be an ancient tomb is rather neatly done.

Lions, dragons, and visiting gods

Finally, a few traditions you can see with your own eyes.

The lion dance (shishimai) of Suwa Shrine in Shibasaki is said to have begun in the Genroku era (1688–1704) and has continued for about 300 years. According to the city’s description, two male lions, one female lion and a tengu (a long-nosed mountain goblin) dance, and there are twelve dances in all, called the juni-gurui — “the twelve frenzies.” Dancing them all is said to take two hours. The highlight is a stirring dance in which the two male lions fight over the female. Three hundred years ago, even in the world of lions, love was a cause of conflict.

Legendary animals hide in Sunagawa’s great banners. According to the city’s description, the great banner (onobori) of Sunagawa No. 10 kumi, made in 1848 (Kaei 1), has a banner 14.6 metres long and a pole about 22 metres long, said to be among the largest in the Kanto region. The decorative wooden carving supporting the base depicts shishi no ko-otoshi — the old tale of the lion who throws its cub off a cliff to test it. According to issue 19 of the newsletter, the carving on the banner of No. 8 kumi shows two dragons about 2 metres long, and it is now displayed in the lobby of Tachikawa City Hall. Go to the city-hall counter for a residence certificate, and a dragon from the end of the Edo period greets you.

And there are traditions that can no longer be seen. According to a record of a city-history lecture, Tachikawa once had events in which gods and Buddhas came visiting from other places: the visits of the “Honourable Lion of Hirakata” and the “Jizo of Izumi.” They can no longer be seen today, the city writes.

There was a time when gods came travelling from village to village. Stories of that time now remain only in the memories of tellers and on paper.

Why folktales survived in Tachikawa

Let me go back to the first question. Why have such old stories survived in Tachikawa, a place wearing the face of a new town?

Half the answer is that Tachikawa was, for a very long time, a land of dark nights, wide fields and lonely roads. Foxes bewitching people, wolves escorting them, snakes cursing them — all were stories of night roads, fields and rivers. Long before the airfield, the base and the department stores, words for talking about the night had piled up on this plateau.

The other half is that there were people who wrote them down. There was the essay of an Edo man of letters; a Showa-era folklore research group walked the villages of Tama collecting stories, and the city made them into books. Even now, the city-history project is recording the history of the Fuji mound’s tree, pointing radar at the fox shrine’s mound, and rereading the documents of a false charge from 650 years ago.

And why don’t we know them? I think it is because Tachikawa’s folktales have been placed not in the busiest spots but in the least conspicuous ones. A dry riverbed. A mound at the end of a lane between houses. A small hill in a park. The lobby of city hall. A single book on a museum shelf. All of them are within walking distance of the station.

On a day when the Zanbori has no water, I will think of the giant snake. Of the blood that flowed for three days and three nights. And I will feel as if something were still flowing over the dry stones.

Quiz answer

The answer is (A), Shibasaki village. According to the encyclopedia entry on the Masakado-zuka, the area around the Masakado-zuka in Otemachi was once called Shibasaki village in Toshima district, Musashi Province. Tachikawa’s Shibasaki village was a different village with the same name, in Tama district.

Before you go

• Zanbori River: From Tachikawa Station, take the Tama Monorail to Shibasaki-Taiikukan Station; the lower reaches, where the river joins the Tama River at the foot of Tachihi Bridge, are close by. You can also walk along the river in Fujimi-cho and on the west side of Showa Kinen Park. It looks completely different after rain and after a run of dry days. It combines easily with the Nekawa green path, walked in another piece in this series.
• Suwa Shrine and the site of the Hachiman Shrine’s main hall: The city’s walking route “Walking the Old Villages” shows a route from the South Exit of JR Tachikawa Station around the shrines and historic sites of old Shibasaki village. The annual grand festival, where the lion dance is performed, is held in late August every year, according to the city. Walking route: https://www.city.tachikawa.lg.jp/kanko/bunka/1004244/1004848/1004889.html Shrines are places of worship; walk quietly and follow any notices.
• Fujizuka Park and Sengen Shrine: Fujimi-cho 1-chome. According to the city-history survey, the Sengen Shrine festival is held every year on 23 November.
• Sawa Inari: Shibasaki-cho 4-chome, at the end of a narrow lane between houses. Please walk the lane quietly and do not step onto private land. It appears on the city’s walking route “Walking from Yagawa toward the Tama River”: https://www.city.tachikawa.lg.jp/kanko/bunka/1004244/1004848/1004890.html
• Tachikawa Museum of History and Folklore (立川市歴史民俗資料館): 3-12-34 Fujimi-cho, Tachikawa. It displays the Hachiman Shrine’s honji-butsu, Suwa Shrine’s lion heads (including replicas) and more, and distributes publications such as More Old Tales of Tachikawa and Oral Literature of Shibasaki (in Japanese). Admission is free. Check opening hours, closing days and publication stock on the city’s pages: https://www.city.tachikawa.lg.jp/kanko/bunka/1004244/1004849/1004905.html / publications: https://www.city.tachikawa.lg.jp/kanko/bunka/1004244/1004851.html
• City-history publications such as Oral Literature of Shibasaki can also be read at the city’s libraries, according to the city.
• The folktale summaries quoted in this article can be read under Tachikawa City in the International Research Center for Japanese Studies’ “Database of Folkloric Strange Phenomena and Yokai” (in Japanese): https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/YoukaiDB/
• From central Tokyo and Kanagawa: Tachikawa Station is a single ride from Shinjuku on the JR Chuo Line. From Kanagawa, the JR Nambu Line links Kawasaki and Tachikawa stations with no change of trains.
• General tips: Carry an IC transit card such as Suica or PASMO for trains, the monorail and buses. Most official pages are in Japanese; a browser’s translate function helps.

After the foxes’ night roads, by Tachikawa Station’s North Exit

The fox stories and the wolf stories were all stories of night roads and fields. Tachikawa’s night roads are bright now. Back at the station’s North Exit, there is little danger of being bewitched by a fox.

A one-minute walk from the North Exit of JR Tachikawa Station, on the 3rd floor of the Etoile Building at 2-14-10 Akebonocho, Tachikawa, Tokyo, is On the Shore Tachikawa (オンザショア立川店), a hot yoga studio laid with lava-stone plates. It also offers room-temperature yoga, Pilates, women-only kickboxercise, boxercise, HIIT and personal training, with more than 25 kinds of yoga lessons.

It is open every day from 8:00 to 23:30. Whether you come back after looking at the Zanbori’s riverbed or after buying a book of old tales at the museum, there’s time to drop in.

A trial yoga lesson costs ¥1,980 (tax included), with two bath towels, one face towel and a mat to rent included, so you can come empty-handed. Pregnant guests cannot join the lava-stone hot yoga, but room-temperature maternity yoga is available. Many of our yoga instructors speak English, and the studio’s owner, Naomi Fujita, who holds Japan’s top English qualification (Eiken Grade 1) and a perfect TOEIC score and once worked as a translator and overseas interpreter at Nomura Securities, and who lived in Alaska for three years, often helps guests from the US bases in English herself (visitors from abroad have even left Google reviews about the care they received in English); if you would like an English-friendly lesson, just say so when you book.

• On the Shore: https://ontheshore.jp/
• Book a trial lesson: https://site.locaop.jp/C0aVK?_src=hp

On the way home, if someone walks you along the night road, be sure to say “gokurosama” when you part. In Tachikawa, that seems to be the custom from of old.

Cover photo: The Zanbori River near Tachihi Bridge: the lower reaches of the river said to be a giant snake’s blood trail (Photo: DiKnK8713 / CC BY-SA 4.0 / Wikimedia Commons)

Information as of October 2026.

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