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But there was a little squall last week at Mionoseki; and the people said that it was caused by the anger of the god. 'Eggs? I queried. 'No: a Kudan. 'What is a Kudan? 'Is it possible you never heard of the Kudan? The Kudan has the face of a man, and the body of a bull. Sometimes it is born of a cow, and that is a Sign-of-things-going-to-happen. And the Kudan always tells the truth.
How delightful Mionoseki now seems, drowsing far off there under its blue tiles at the feet of the holy hills! immemorial Mionoseki, with its lamps and lions of stone, and its god who hates eggs! pretty fantastic Mionoseki, where all things, save the schools, are medieval still: the high-pooped junks, and the long-nosed boats, and the plaintive chants of oarsmen!
Very sleepy and quiet by day is Mionoseki: only at long intervals one hears laughter of children, or the chant of oarsmen rowing the most extraordinary boats I ever saw outside of the tropics; boats heavy as barges, which require ten men to move them.
Likewise he hates hens and chickens, and abhors the Cock above all living creatures. And in Mionoseki there are no cocks or hens or chickens or eggs. You could not buy a hen's egg in that place even for twenty times its weight in gold. And no boat or junk or steamer could be hired to convey to Mionoseki so much as the feather of a chicken, much less an egg.
Simultaneously there comes the recollection of a strangely grim Buddhist legend. Once the Buddha smiled; and by the wondrous radiance of that smile were countless worlds illuminated. But there came a Voice, saying: 'It is not real! It cannot last! And the light passed. Seki wa yoi toko, Asahi wo ukete; O-Yama arashiga Soyo-soyoto! THE God of Mionoseki hates eggs, hen's eggs.
And the people of Yasugi aver that one may better serve the deity by eating eggs than by doing as the people of Mionoseki do; for whenever one eats a chicken or devours an egg, one destroys an enemy of Koto-shiro-nushi-no-Kami. From Matsue to Mionoseki by steamer is a charming journey in fair weather.
It seemed to me a curious thing, when I saw Oki ponies for the first time, that Sasaki Takatsuna's battle-steed not less famous in Japanese story than the horse Kyrat in the ballads of Kurroglou is declared by the islanders to have been a native of Oki. And they have a tradition that it once swam from Oki to Mionoseki. Almost every district and town in Japan has its meibutsu or its kembutsu.
Indeed, it is even held that if you have eaten eggs in the morning you must not dare to visit Mionoseki until the following day. For the great deity of Mionoseki is the patron of mariners and the ruler of storms; and woe unto the vessel which bears unto his shrine even the odour of an egg.
Every good ship which visits Mionoseki leaves there, so I am assured, from three hundred to five hundred yen for sake and for dancing-girls. Much do these mariners pray the Great Deity who hates eggs to make calm the waters and favourable the winds, so that Mionoseki may be reached in good time without harm.
Fine bamboo-ware is indeed the meibutsu, the special product of Mionoseki; and almost every visitor buys some nice little specimen to carry home with him. The Miojinja is not in its architecture more remarkable than ordinary Shinto temples in Izumo; nor are its interior decorations worth describing in detail.
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