Once upon a time, there lived a fisherman named Sozaemon at the mouth of the beach at Hagiriura,
Daiozaki. One day, Sozaemon went out to the offshore of Daio Island and cast his net as usual, but on
that particular day, he did not catch any fish.
“What is this?”
Sōzaemon clicked his tongue, threw the stone into the sea, rowed his boat out to sea, and when he cast his net, the same stone came entangled.
Another stone? Sozaemon muttered.
Sozaemon threw the stone away, muttering to himself, and rowed onward, this time in a different
direction, and when he had cast his net, the same stone caught him again.
Sozaemon thought this was strange, and loaded the stone on his boat, rowed back, and placed it
under the bank on the beach.
A few months passed, and as the children of the village went out to play on the beach, they started
to urinate on the stone, and kick it for fun.The child who urinated on it would get a fever, and the child who kicked it with his foot would get
swollen feet.
"This is strange, it's Tatari stone..."
As this was going on, the stone was exposed to the wind and rain, and the shells and seaweed that had been attached to it fell off, revealing the shape of a stone Jizo. The villagers got together and asked a stonemason to restore the stone, and then decided to erect a shrine on Do-no-yama, a small hill on the outskirts of the village, and enshrine it there.
However, when the village had a big catch or a good
harvest, the Jizo would sweat white sweat. On the contrary, when there was an earthquake or a
tsunami, or when there was a bad catch or a bad harvest, he would sweat black sweat to warn the
villagers.
As word of this spread through the neighboring villages, several miscreants from neighboring villages
came to Hagiri Village, hoping to steal the Jizo. Under the cover of night, they tied the Jizo with a
rope and carried it out, and when they reached a slope on the outskirts of the village, they placed it
on the ground to take a rest and have a smoke.
In the meantime, the night began to grow light.
After
that, no one came to steal the Jizo from anywhere, and the villagers worshipped the Jizo with even
greater reverence.
Nowadays, the festival is held on February 2 every year to pray for safety at sea, satisfaction of a big catch, family safety, prosperity of family business, and traffic safety.
