The following refers to the inscribed stone slab in the bottom right of this image.

“I am a someone who lives in Koga City, Ibaraki prefecture. In my neighborhood there are many stone steles with the inscription “Sarutahiko ookami, or Sarutahiko◯◯. Height is roughly up to the knee of an adult.

Old ones are in time replaced with new ones, they are usually in the front of peoples’ gardens or around the grounds of houses.

I have lived here four years since I married in, and my husband, a native here, knows nothing about them. As far as he was concerned, they had always been here and he had never thought about them.

Can anyone tell me about them? It’s a minor matter, but I’m curious.”

Answer: “I am a resident of Koga city also. Sarutahiko ookami is a deity which appears in Japanese mythology. He appears in the Kojiki and Nihongi as an earth deity who guided Ninigi no mikoto when he descended from heaven.

Because it is said, ‘disaster appears from the northeast,’ the deity is enshrined at the northeast side of the house, in order to prevent disasters from occurring.

Old houses built before the war often had these steles, but in houses built after the war they are fewer. There was one in the house I grew up in. Belief in Sarutahiko ookami is all over Japan. The center of worship is in Ise.”