Hashihime Legend

The Hashihime legend is the cycle of the female deity (and oni) attached to the Uji Bridge over the Uji River, in which the same figure appears both as guardian of the bridge and as a woman turned into a jealous oni. In the sword scroll of the Heike Monogatari, a noble lady of the time of Emperor Saga, betrayed by her husband, prays for seven nights at the Kifune Shrine to be turned into an oni in life; she then immerses herself in the Uji River for seven days, after which she sprouts five horns and breathes fire as an oni. She kills the husband, his new love and their relatives, until Watanabe no Tsuna of Minamoto no Yorimitsu's four heavenly kings cuts off her arm at Ichijo-modoribashi and she retreats. At Uji she is enshrined as the bridge's guardian. The structure has three parts: betrayal and the Kifune retreat and transformation into an oni; serial killings and the dread of the capital; and the arm-cutting by Watanabe no Tsuna and the enshrinement as bridge guardian. The cycle is a classic 'nama-nari' tale in which a living woman becomes an oni through devotion, joining jealousy, vengeance and the bridge as three boundary motifs. The shift from oni to guardian deity demonstrates the goryo logic within the legend itself. The central site is Hashihime Shrine at the west end of Uji Bridge in Uji-Renge, Uji (Kyoto). The Uji Bridge is said to have been built by Doto in 646; Ichijo-modoribashi in Kamigyo, Kyoto, is the arm-cutting site, and Kifune Shrine in Sakyo, Kyoto, is the retreat site, completing a three-point cycle. The noh play Kanawa transmits the related type of a woman setting an iron tripod on her head for ushi-no-koku-mairi, with Abe no Seimei coming to the husband's aid. Sources include the Heike Monogatari sword scroll (Kamakura period), the noh Kanawa (Muromachi period), various otogi-zoshi, and the Edo Honcho Kaidan Koji and Ehon Hyaku Monogatari. Shrine records and the Uji City Museum of History provide further documentation. The cycle is an independent tradition formed between the late Heian and the medieval period, outside the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki.