Mori · JP

Kone Shrine

Kine Shrine (許禰神社, Kine-jinja)—shown on some maps as "Kone Shrine"—is a quiet, deep-history Shinto shrine sitting at the northern edge of Mori, a small old-post-town in the hills of western Shizuoka. It stands in the Mikura district along the Akiba Kaido, the ancient pilgrim road that once carried worshippers from the coast up into the mountains toward Akiba Shrine, and it keeps an unusual treasure: a prayer for peace in the realm attributed to Tokugawa Ieyasu himself. This is not a glossy tourist site but a genuine country shrine, revered as the tutelary deity of the surrounding villages and recorded among the old shrines listed in the Engishiki, the tenth-century compilation of shrine rites. For a traveler already exploring Mori's tea fields, thatched farmhouses and the cedar-lined approaches of Okuni Shrine, Kine makes an unhurried stop on the forested northern road—an introduction to the living folk religion of the Tokaido hinterland.