Stone lantern covered with green moss in a small Shinto Santuary

Stone lantern covered with green moss in a small Shinto Santuary dedicated to the Uga-no-Mitama divinity meaning "the spirit of the rice in storehouses" which is associated with food and agriculture and which is often represented in the form of the fox Inari the divinity of rice. On the yellow paper lanterns that are hanging under a trellis shaded by foliage are drawn symbols that remind you of the will-o'-the-wisles and ideograms "Shuzoku Enoki" from the name of the tree where the foxes gathered or "kitsunebi" which means Fox ghost light. On the red flags called nobori which border the path of the sanctuary are inscribed Shozoku Inari Shrine, the date of February 2018 and the name of the donors in the white rectangle. Located in the city of Oji in the district of Kita north of Tokyo, this place once owned a tree Enoki Celtis sinensis Micocoulier which stood in the middle of the rice fields. On New Year's Eve, foxes from all over the region gathered here and there were signs of will-o'-the-wisps, which made the superstitious peasants count their numbers and used that to predict a good or bad harvest for next year. This scene is represented in the series of prints "One Hundred Famous Views of Edo" by Utagawa Hiroshige.