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And those who are cured of their coughs and colds after having prayed to him, bring to his temple offerings of tofu. At Oba, likewise, there is a particular Inari, of great fame. Fastened to the wall of his shrine is a large box full of small clay foxes.
At the rear of almost every Inari temple you will generally find in the wall of the shrine building, one or two feet above the ground, an aperture about eight inches in diameter and perfectly circular. It is often made so as to be closed at will by a sliding plank.
The foxes wait upon him, and do his bidding. Inasmuch as rice is the most important and necessary product of Japan, the honours which Inari Sama receives are extraordinary.
When the fox is reduced to silence by religious argument upon the wickedness of possessing people, he usually agrees to go away on condition of being supplied with plenty of tofu or other food; and the food promised must be brought immediately to that particular Inari temple of which the fox declares himself a retainer.
The great Inari temple of Inari in the castle grounds O-Shiroyama-no-InariSama with its thousands upon thousands of foxes of stone, is considered by the country people a striking proof of the devotion of the Matsudaira, not to Inari, but to foxes. At present, however, it is no longer possible to establish distinctions of genera in this ghostly zoology, where each species grows into every other.
Such shrines and temples, everybody knows, are dedicated to Inari the God of Rice. After having travelled much in Japan, you will find that whenever you try to recall any country-place you have visited, there will appear in some nook or corner of that remembrance a pair of green-and-grey foxes of stone, with broken noses.
"On this day," says the O-Satsuyô, a Japanese cyclopædia, "at Yeddo, where there are myriads upon myriads of shrines to Inari Sama, there are all sorts of ceremonies.
The god is besought to send one of his retainers to amuse the child, and reconcile it to the new order of things, and render it both docile and happy. Also if a child is naughty, or falls sick, this Inari is appealed to.
And there was no fire. There is also a well-authenticated story about another wealthy shopkeeper of Matsue who easily became the prey of another pretended Inari This Inari told him that whatever sum of money he should leave at a certain miya by night, he would find it doubled in the morning as the reward of his lifelong piety.
The charm is peculiar to the city; and of the Inari in question this tradition exists: When Naomasu, the grandson of Iyeyasu, first came to Matsue to rule the province, there entered into his presence a beautiful boy, who said: 'I came hither from the home of your august father in Echizen, to protect you from all harm.
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