The Seven Wonders of Honjo are a series of strange stories and urban legends from what is now Sumida City in Tokyo, but in the Edo era was known as Honjo. You have to imagine as it once was, a swampy forested land full of the people who served the lords and ladies across the river in and around Edo castle. A mixture of the estuary as it was filling up with people and being built up from west to east over time.

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Leave It Behind | 置いてけ堀 Oitekebori (From Ryogoku to Kinshicho

The Oitekebori legend goes something like this. One night some fishermen were catching fish in Kinshibori, the rice storehouse pond, when a mysterious voice spoke to them ‘Oite’, ‘Leave it behind.’ When they heard this they became freaked out and ran off. They came back a short while later to retrieve the fish they had caught earlier only to find them completely missing and no one there.

This had become such a general problem that several sites around what is now Sumida City were said to be Oikebori hot spots where this happened from time to time. The creatures most commonly thought to be the culprits were tanuki, raccoon dogs or kappa, a Japanese form of water sprite that looks like a cross between a frog, a turtle and a naughty little boy. There is even a kappa statue erected where the main site of the rice storehouse pond was located so many years ago. It is in Kinshibori Park just southeast of Kinshicho Station near. In the daytime it is mostly safe, but ladies need to know that this area services the local red light district by night.

Giant Ghost Foot Washing House | 足洗邸 | Ashiarai-yashiki (Ashiarai House, Yokoami or Kamezawa, Sumida Ward)

A bloody foot comes down from the ceiling of a samurai residence and the people living there have to wash it.

There was a big mansion called “The Foot Washing Mansion” near Ryogoku. Late at night around 3 am, there were loud noises accompanied by a fishy wind and the mansion shakes. Then a giant bloody foot would break through the ceiling and come down, crying out “Wash my feet!” If the owner of the residence washed the foot properly, it would return to the attic and the ceiling would return to its original state. However, if it was not washed properly, it would rampage until morning and step through all the ceilings in the mansion shaking it very badly.

The owner of the samurai residence was a hatamoto (retainer to the Shogun) level samurai named Ajino Sakinosuke. He eventually told another hatamoto about the phenomenon. The other hatamoto was so curious about it that they exchanged houses. To his bad luck the foot never appeared while he was the owner or ever after.

The was located in Honjo Mikasa-cho in what is now Kamezawa, Sumida City. It is just across from Tokugawa Junior Hish School. As of now an optician’s store is located there. If you want to visit the location you might be disappointed by how spooky it is not these latter days.

https://edo.amebaownd.com/posts/7318147/

Tanuki-bayashi (Raccoon Music) (Honjo area)

狸囃子（たぬきばやし）別名「馬鹿囃子（ばかばやし）」

Drums can be heard in the old Honjo area in the deep of the swampy forest at night, but no one had been able to find the source of the sound. The drums sometimes sounded closer and somtimes further away. They would move around in the distance from here to there seemingly randomly. It was believed that Japanese raccoon dogs, aka tanuki, were beating their tummies like drums.

One-Leaf Reed (Ryogoku Bridge)

片葉の葦（かたはのあし）

A young man named Toruzo fell in love a beautiful young woman named Okoma. He asked her to marry him many times but she constantly rejected him. Not able to take the rejection anymore he stalked her as she went out of her family house one day on an errand. He caught her at old Komata (Komadome) bridge over the Sumida river near where the Rugoku bridge is located today. Her killed her with his knife then cut off the arm and leg from one side of her body and threw them into the moat. After that it is said the reeds in that area grew with leaves on only one side. He apparently went mad soon after and died.

Okurihyoshigi (Farewell clappers) (Honjo Wari Shimizu)

送り拍子木（おくりひょうしぎ）

In Edo times a kind of night watchman whose job it was to look out for fires would walk along the streets at night and occasionally would clap two small wooden boards together to declare all was well. In the Honjo area this night watchman might hear another pair of clappers answer them from behind but when they turn around to see who was there the street would be completely empty. This phenomenon was apparently common near the Toki no Kane Bell in Honjo Irie-cho (present-day Midori, Sumida Ward).
https://exotericjapan.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Okurihyoshigi-Farewell-clappers-Honjo-Wari-Shimizu.jpg

Okuri chochin (farewell lanterns) (Honjo Ishihara, Tatekawa)

送り提灯（おくりちょうちん）

Near Ho-on-ji Temple Demura ( Taihei 1-chome), near the Oyoko Yokokawa people walking along the dark streets at night see a the light from a lantern at the end of the street. When they reach there the light goes out and nobody is there. Then at the end of another street the light of another lantern bightens up. The lanterns and their owners are are never caught up to.

Lightless Soba (from the Minamiwari canal in Honjo)

燈無蕎麦（あかりなしそば）

This is a food stall that is always unmanned, and if you carelessly light the lantern in front of the stall, misfortune will occur. Located near the Honjo Minamiwari canal were twenty-eight soba stalls. One of these stalls was not manned but still lit up. Even if you waited at it all night no one would come to open it up. Another version of the story has this as a lone soba shop that would appear on dark and snowy nights, luring people out into the night. However, once people reach the soba stall and start demanding someone show up and give them soba, if they try to open the stall or mess with its lights they are cursed. This curse is not necessarily deadly, just a spate of bad luck will befall them.

Ochiba Naki Shii – The Chinkapin Tree of Unfallen Leaves

落葉なき椎（おちばなきしい）

The shii trees of the Matsuura Ieage residence on the Sumida River are often flourishing, but no matter how wind blows, the leaves have never fallen. Because the shii tree is an evergreen tree, the leaves may be less likely to fall than deciduous trees, but when people see it, it was always clean aroudn the base. In addition, this became famous, and the Matsuura family came to be called “Shiinoki Yashiki”. However, it seemed the Matsuura family were so disturbed by this that they gave up their home and moved away.

Refererences in English and Japanese

https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%9C%AC%E6%89%80%E4%B8%83%E4%B8%8D%E6%80%9D%E8%AD%B0
https://www.city.sumida.lg.jp/faq/bunka_kanko/bunka_jigyou/1148.html
https://www.kcf.or.jp/cms/files/pdf/original/7905_%E8%B3%87%E6%96%99%E9%A4%A8%E3%83%8E%E3%83%BC%E3%83%8892.pdf

https://www.juken-net.com/main/feature/sevenwonders/
https://www.wul.waseda.ac.jp/kotenseki/html/chi05/chi05_01063_0002/index.html