Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 5.djvu/236

 bride, her cortège made a long detour to avoid the vicinity of this tree, and the same precaution was observed in the cases of Princesses Raku and Kazu at subsequent dates. Another tree of the same kind at Yenoki-zaka in Tōkyō cures toothache, and the leaves of an oak at Azuma-mari drive away ague. Sometimes a cordon of straw rope plaited in the style of the New-Year shimenawa is drawn about such sacred trees; sometimes they are fenced off, and sometimes a shrine with a box for thank-offerings is placed under their boughs by persons not indisposed to derive profit from their fellow-beings' piety. The cedar and camphor-tree are notable objects of such respect. Plants growing in an abnormal manner or presenting any peculiar features are also thought to possess miraculous power. Many pretty legends grew out of that conviction. The cherry bloom, type of glowing loveliness, and the willow, image of everything that is refined and gentle, often took the shape of winsome maidens and bestowed themselves upon some great warrior or noble exile. So, too, when Sugawara-no-Michizane, the most unfortunate of Japanese statesmen, became the victim of a rival's slanders and was banished to Dazaifu in Chikuzen, the rosy-petalled plum-tree on whose boughs he had hung verselets every spring from the days of his boyhood, flew through the clouds from Kyōtō, and planted itself by his side in the place of his solitude. The Japanese love this legend of the flying plum (tobi-ume), and