6 Haunted Places in Kyoto
Every case file on record in Kyoto — each with the full legend, the documented sightings spine and the skeptic’s file.
Rokudō Chinno-ji — The Well to Enma's Court
A · Kyoto, Japan — The small Rinzai temple at Rokudō-no-Tsuji — the crossroads where Heian Kyoto met its burial ground — where a courtier is said to have descended nightly by well to serve as secretary to the king of he…
Kurama-dera — The Mountain of the Tengu
A · Kurama, Sakyō-ku, Kyoto, Japan — The mountain temple north of Kyoto, founded in 770, whose deity is said to have descended in a fireball from Venus — and whose forests are the home of the tengu, the long-nosed mountain goblins of Jap…
Adashino Nenbutsu-ji — The Field of Eight Thousand Stones
A · Saga-Toriimoto, Ukyō-ku, Kyoto, Japan — The temple at Adashino, on the western edge of old Kyoto, where the unmourned were once carried out and left — the tradition says Kōbō Daishi began gathering them in 811; today some eight thousand sto…
Kiyotaki Tunnel — Kyoto's Cursed Passage
B · Kyoto, Japan — A 1927 mountain tunnel where a mirror-check at night is said to show a woman's face where yours should be.…
Ichijō Modoribashi — Kyoto's Bridge of Return
B · Kyoto, Japan — The bridge at the old capital's northern edge where a dead father returned for one last embrace in 918 — and where a samurai cut off a demon's arm and Japan's greatest sorcerer hid his twelve spirit f…
Seimei-jinja — The Onmyōji's Well
B · Ichijō, Kamigyō-ku, Kyoto, Japan — The shrine raised in 1007 by imperial order on the estate of Abe no Seimei — the astronomer-onmyōji who served six emperors and became, after his death, Japan's archetypal magician; its well is said t…