Chinkaiseki Hachimangu Shrine Itoshima

 

Situated on a hilltop overlooking the sea and noted for its sunset views, Chinkaiseki Hachimangu traces its roots back to the mythical Empress Jingu, just like the last shrine I visited in Karatsu, Kumonohara Shrine.

The chinkaiseki of the name refer to a pair of smooth stones Jingu picked up and carried in her sleeves while she "subdued" the Korean Peninsula. Later she returned the stones here, though they cannot be seen.

The story is recorded in the Kojiki as well as in a poem in the Manyoshu.

Stones of various kinds can be found at the shrine.... halfway up the slope, at the site of what was earlier the main hall, is a small structure containing three stones. The Yin Yang stones resemble the genitals of male and female, and the stone on the right is said to be a sainokami, the guardian of village borders, often represented as a phallic stone and later by a "cute" male-female pair.

There is a Konpira Shrine, and a Sarutahiko shrine, and several sacred stones of different kinds.

This was the last stop on day 73 of my walk. I was coming down with some kind of cold so I took the train into Fukuoka and planned a rest day the next day. The previous post in this series was on the neighbouring Shinkoin Temple.