Hashihime

Hashihime ("Bridge Maiden") combines the figure of a bridge-guardian goddess with that of a female demon. In the old layer she is a boundary deity protecting bridges, attested in Man'yoshu, scroll 9, and Kokin Wakashu, scroll 14. From the medieval period the tale of "Hashihime of Uji" was widely told. Heike Monogatari, Tsurugi-no-maki, set in the reign of Emperor Saga, says a noble's daughter consumed by jealousy made a seven-day retreat at Kifune Shrine in Kyoto, then bathed in the Uji River for twenty-one days, becoming a demoness while still alive; she divided her hair into five horns and ranged Kyoto at night. The Noh play Kanawa and Toriyama Sekien's Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki (1779) carry the image. Hashihime Shrine at the western end of the Uji Bridge in Uji enshrines her together with Seoritsuhime.