Yoshiwara Jinja. (Yoshiwara Shrine.)

This is situated on the right hand side of the Go-jik-ken-michi. Formerly there was on this site a shrine called Yoshitoku Inari, but of late years the Enomoto Inari (at the corner of Yedo-chō Ni-chō-me) the Kai-un Inari (at the corner of Kyō-machi, It-chō-me) the Kurosuke Inari (at the corner of Kyō-machi Ni-chō-me) and the Akashi Inari (at the corner of Yedo-chō Ni-chō-me—Fushimi-chō) were all amalgamated into one. The name of “Yoshiwara Jinja” was given to the new shrine and it has been made the guardian shrine of the “enclosure.” Every twelve days, on the day of the horse, the festival of this shrine is celebrated, crowds of people visit the neighbourhood including sundry itinerant dealers known as “ennichi akindo” (festival dealers) and the fête has become one of the popular features of the Yoshiwara. According to the Shimpen Yedo-shi,” (新編江戶志) the Kurosuke Inari was in the old Yoshiwara, having been founded in the 4th year of Wadō? (711?). Later on, a person named Chiba Kurosuke removed it to a space on the border of a paddy-field, and since the establishment of the Yoshiwara, in the era of Keichō (1596–1614), this Inari became the guardian deity of the prostitute quarter. Again, according to the “Kwagai Manroku” (花街漫錄) the shrine of the Kurosuke Inari was situated beneath Kyō-machi Ni-chō-me since its removal from the old to the new Yoshiwara, and about the era of Tenna (1681–1683) it began to be called “Kurosuke” Inari because a man called Kurosuke lived in front of the building.

As to the origin of the “Byakko-seki” (white fox stone) of the Akashi-Inari—which was the presiding deity of Yedo-chō Ni-chō-me—its shrine formerly stood on the estates of a certain Mr. Nishimura, but at the request of the local inhabitants to consecrate it shrine of the guardian deity it was removed to the present site. While the shrine was in course of construction a curiously shaped object was unearthed, and on closer examination it was found to be a beautiful blackish coloured stone resembling the figure of a byakko (white fox) gambolling in the fields. The people, thinking this a good omen, consecrated the image under the name of Akashi Inari (明石 = aka-ishi “the bright stone,” or even, by forced rendering, “the bright and revealed stone”) and prayed to it as a god which would bring prosperity and good-luck to the town and protect the quarter from disastrous fires.