Furougu

Quick facts

Address

726-1 Sakemi, Okawa, Fukuoka

Spiritual entities

Empress Jingu (神功皇后)

About this place

Furougu is in Okawa, Fukuoka, and is called Ofurousan by local people. On Empress Jingu’s return from her campaign in Silla, in the year 192, when she brought her warships in to the harbour of Ashihara in Chikugo, a white heron appeared suddenly beside her ship. The empress held that the white heron was the manifestation of Wadatsumi, who had opened the way of victory for her; she commanded the minister Takenouchi to raise a temporary shrine, and Azumi no Muraji Isoramaru, the naval commander of the day, served as officiant and enshrined Wadatsumi. It is held to be a deity of fortune in victory and a guardian of the sea.

Origin and history

On Empress Jingu’s return from her campaign in Silla, in the year 192, when she brought her warships in to the harbour of Ashihara in Chikugo, a white heron appeared suddenly beside her ship.

The empress held that the white heron was the manifestation of Wadatsumi, who had opened the way of victory for her; she commanded the minister Takenouchi to raise a temporary shrine, and Azumi no Muraji Isoramaru, the naval commander of the day, served as officiant and enshrined Wadatsumi.

It is held to be a deity of fortune in victory and a guardian of the sea.

What it is locally associated with

• Origin

  Where the white heron came down

  A white heron appeared suddenly beside the empress’s ship, was held to be the manifestation of Wadatsumi, and where it alighted became sacred ground.

  folk tradition

• Origin

  A naval commander as first officiant

  The minister Takenouchi raised a temporary shrine, and Azumi no Muraji Isoramaru, the naval commander of the day, served as officiant.

  folk tradition

• Power spotProtection & Safety

  Victory and the sea

  It is held to be a deity of fortune in victory and a guardian of the sea, and is called Ofurousan locally.

  documented history

A bird chose where this shrine stands. A white heron appeared suddenly beside the empress’s ship, was held to be the manifestation of Wadatsumi who had opened the way of victory, and where it came down became the sacred ground. On this list an ox chose the grave at Dazaifu Tenmangu, the deity of Kasuga arrives riding a white deer, and Kurama-dera’s founder is led by a white horse. Fukuoka alone now has two of these.

The first officiant was a naval commander. Azumi no Muraji Isoramaru, the naval commander of the day, served as officiant and enshrined the deity. That Azumi clan appears at Miyajidake Shrine in the same prefecture, where the head of the clan who accompanied Empress Jingu is enshrined with her. One seafaring family ties two shrines together.

What the shrine claims for itself is fortune in victory and guardianship of the sea. Local people call it Ofurousan.

The shrine’s deities are presented on the page as an image rather than as text, and only the name Wadatsumi is legible in writing. This page therefore names no other deity.

Related guides

• How to visit a shrine or temple in JapanThe country-wide basics: purifying at the water basin, the two-bows-two-claps-one-bow form at shrines, and what temples do instead.
• What a "power spot" actually isA modern Japanese coinage, not a traditional religious category. Where the word came from, what it does and does not claim, and why this site uses it anyway.
• Shrine or temple?A shrine is Shinto and a temple is Buddhist, and you can usually tell at the gate. Why the line is cleaner on paper than on the ground, and what a government order in 1868 has to do with it.
• Omamori, ema, omikuji and goshuinThe four things you are most likely to receive, write, draw or be given at a shrine or temple, what each is actually for, and the one of them people most often get wrong.

Sources

1. 風浪宮とは — Furougu (accessed 2026-08-15)