S P O T ／ SPOT-286

Goshado of Akagami Shrine (The Five Halls)

赤神神社五社堂あかがみじんじゃごしゃどう

Climb 999 moss-slick stone steps up the side of Mt. Honzan on the Oga Peninsula, and the forest opens onto something improbable: five small wooden halls standing in a single perfect row, like a chorus line frozen on the mountainside. These are the Goshado of Akagami Shrine—five irimoya-roofed halls rebuilt in 1710, designated National Important Cultural Properties along with the late-Muromachi shrine cabinet kept inside the central hall. The staircase itself is the legend. Villagers, tormented by five demons brought to the peninsula by Emperor Wu of Han, wagered that if the demons could lay a thousand steps in one night they could take a village girl. At 999 steps a villager crowed like a rooster to fake the dawn, and the demons fled—one step short forever. Those same five demons are told as an origin of Oga's famous Namahage, the masked visiting deities. Inside, an Eleven-Faced Kannon attributed to the wandering monk-sculptor Enku ties the site to centuries of Buddhist–Shinto syncretism. The reward for the lung-burning climb is a row of weathered halls so orderly the press once called them 'an idol group lined up onstage.'