(590) Tales of Big Snakes #3 Wakigafuchi

Were there any big snakes here in Matsuyama?

I happened to find an article about big snakes at Wakigafuchi deep water in this book.

日本魔界伝説地図 (Gakken Mook)

• 作者: 東雅夫
• 出版社/メーカー: 学研プラス
• 発売日: 2010/07/14
• メディア: ムック

There once were a pair of big snakes at Wakigafuchi deep water.

Please look at the map. The distance from Ishiteji temple to Wakigafuchi deep water is about 4 kilometers in a straight line.

To tell the truth, I didn't know of Wakigafuchi at all. But Wakigafuchi seems to be famous here in Matsuyama. Next picture is the front cover of the latest issue (Sep. 2023) of Matsuyama-Hyakuten booklet. Wakigafuchi is drawn.

 

Naito Meisetu, a samurai of Matsuyama fief, wrote about Wakigafuchi in his autobiography.

(1847-1926) 

Natsume Souseki made a haiku poem about Wakigafuchi.

(1867-1916)
蛇を切った岩ときけば淵寒し
If you hear of a rock on which a snake was cut,
it is cold in the deep water

Here is the picture of the Snake Bone and Stone Sword in Ishiteji temple.

(2023.07.18)

The "Snake Bone", is a bone of a male serpent that was killed by a monk of Ishite-ji Temple. If the bone is a skull of the snake, I roughly guess the snake was about 6 m long.

The serpent had been troubling people in the old days. The monk exterminated it by the power of Buddha Dhama. He threw this stone sword at the snake.

The female snake was still alive at that time. 

I read about a female big snake at Wakigafuchi in this book.

A lord named Hanzo lived near Wakigafuchi deep water. One day a beautiful woman came to Hanzo's house. She was so beautiful and so polite he let her in, and she came to live in his house as a servant. Her name was Oryo.

One night, Oryo went out alone without saying anything to Hanzo, but he saw her leave, so he followed her. She walked very fast toward Wakigafuchi deep water and dived from the cliff into the river and twisted her body remarkably.

Hanzo was frightened to see this. He went back home to get a gun and returned to Wakigafuchi to discover who she really was. He waited for a while. A dragon appeared on the surface of the river.

Suddenly it transformed itself into Oryo. Getting up on the rock, she tied her hair looking at her image in the water. Hanzo decided to shoot this creature. He aimed at her neck and fired.

The dragon roared. Seven days later, the remain of the dragon was found in the lower stream. Until recently, the snake bone festival, which deifies the skull of the dragon, was held every year in Wakigafuchi area. Now the bone was enshrined at Shrine of the Dragon Princess

I did a little survey on Hanzo Miyoshi. According to the historical record of Miyoshi family, the female snake was killed between 1587 and 1602.

The End