Approaching Abu, 2 small islands lie just offshore.
The smaller island is named Megashima, which means Doe Island. It has a single torii and may have a hokura.
The larger island is named Ogashima, which means Stag Island. It has several torii and some shrine buildings. It is a branch of Kashima Shrine.
Being male and female islands, they are known as Married Couple Islands.
In Abu itself, the main shrine is a Sugawara Shrine.
Obviously Sugawara Michizane is enshried here.... same as in Tenmangu shrines or Tenjin shrines.... though am not sure why they have different names.
These shachi on the roof of a small hokoro were quite unusual...
Many shrines to Sugawara have an ox statue, from the ox that was carrying his coffin in Dazaifu and then stopped. At that spot Dazaifu Tenmangu was built, though until Meiji it was actually a temple.
There was no signboard at the shrine, and I can not find any information about the shrine online in either Japanese or English...
There were some nice paintings on the ceiling and a fairly unusual pair of komainu
The previous post in this series on day 3 of my walk along the Chugoku Kannon Pilgrimage was on the
walk from Oi to here...
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