Unagihime Shrine

It's about a 20-minute walk (or a 5-minute drive) from Yufuin Station, with views of Mt. Yufu and the surrounding countryside. This popular tourist spot in Yufuin also sees Horse-drawn Carriage (Tsujibasha) making a stop. This shrine has long been affectionately known as "Rokushō-sama" in the local community, and "Rokushō" refers to the six deities enshrined at the shrine. Yufuin was once a marshland with ruins dating back to the Yayoi period, and it is said that its origins lie in the worship of eels as the spirits of the marshland. The temple grounds in the past were vast, far larger than what can be imagined from its current appearance. Throughout its long history, trees have been cut down several times, and records show that at the end of the Sengoku period, timber was cut from this shrine to construct the Bungo Ichinomiya "Yusuhara Hachimangu" (Oita City) by order of the feudal lord Otomo Yoshimune. The large tree stump standing in the temple grounds is the remains of a giant cedar tree that felled during Typhoon Hagibis in 1991. It is now carefully enshrined as a reminder of the former culture of giant trees and the history of the shrine.