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Rh grass-grown roofs of the village peeped domestically from amid the crops. An army of mulberry bushes in very orderly files flanked them round about, silk-worm rearing being the village occupation; so much so that it had given its name to the local pilgrim-club under whose auspices the function was to be performed.

Two gods shared the temple very cordially; O-ana-muchi-no-kami, the right-hand god of the Ontaké trio, and Hachiman Daijin, the god of war. O-ana-muchi-no-kami was the patron god of the feat we had come to see. He himself was wont not only to walk upon the blades, but at times went so far as actually to go to sleep upon them, a seemingly useless bit of bravado only paralleled by the pains some people are at to tell you how they doze in their dentist's chair.

From the head priest's house we made our way up a hill to the temple. As we turned the corner of the outer buildings we caught sight, at the farther end of the grounds, of so startling a scaffold that we all instinctively came to a point—of admiration—before it. Evidently this was the material means to the miracle, for against it a ladder,