Once in Yashu, there was a strange man who always boasted that he could swallow a manju (Japanese dough buns) in one gulp. His neighbour, a bad man, knew of this man’s weirdo. So, one day, he put a needle in his manju. As usual, the man ate it in one gulp. He felt a severe pain in his stomach. Quickly, he went to bed. Lying on his bed, he looked out of the window. A sparrow repeatedly came to the leek patch, eating the tops. The man watched it every day. One day, he saw coming out of the sparrow’s tail a small piece of needle wrapped around with a leek. He thought, ‘If I also eat leeks, the needle would come out.’ When he ate many leeks, the needle actually came out and his pain disappeared. The man built a little shrine which he called ‘Sparrow Shrine’.
The Deified Giltheads
Once, a fish seller in Tosa province was going from the beach to a village back in the mountains to sell fish. On a lonely road, he noticed a copper pheasant caught in a net among the trees. He wanted that bird but he thought, ‘It is not right to take it without paying.’ He took out the pheasant. In return, he took three giltheads from his basket and put them in the net. Then, he carried the pheasant home. The villagers, who came along, thought it very strange that giltheads were in the mountain. They thought that it was a sign from God and so they built a shrine there. They worshipped the three giltheads and called the shrine ‘Kurodai Shansho Gongen’ meaning the temporary manifestation of heaven in the three giltheads.
