Daily HDR Photo — Dragon Fish, castle guardian
Today’s photo is of a shachihoko (shah-chee-ho-ko). Ugly guy, isn’t he? You can find these on the tops of Japanese castles everywhere. With their magical dragon fish powers, they protect the castle from harm!
About
Well, from fire anyways. Or so the story goes. A shachihoko is a mythical beast with the head of a dragon and the body of a carp. It has the power to cause rain to fall. Because of this, the old Japanese stuck this guy on castles and other important structures to protect them from fire.
It’s a rather indirect way to protect from fire, but you can see the reasoning here. Unfortunately, it didn’t work very well. Lots of castles in the past burned up. But how can you stay mad at a face like that, huh?
If you want to read more on these guys, my friend Daniel O’Grady wrote a bit about Shachihoko at his blog.
I took this shachi’s photo in Matsuyama Castle in Ehime, Japan. It’s a beautiful castle and I recommend anyone in the area go see it. I believe parts of it are original. The main Keep burned down in 1784 (nice going there, Shachi; good work, buddy) and was rebuilt about 75 years later. It was damaged more by WW2 bombings and was subsequently fixed up some more. They did a wonderful job with all the restorations. It feels like a real castle, like Himeji, inside and out.
I happened to stumble across some maiko in the area, having lunch with a customer. But that photo will have to wait for another time…
Misc Photo info
Click on the photo for a larger version, and go grab the original at flickr. It is completely free: Download it, share it with your friends, do whatever you want with it, just please give me credit and link back to this page.
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wow.…you took this picture of Shachihoko??? @_@;;… How??? You cannot take this one even ｂｙ using a “walking stick”.… I’m not a person of “Kousho kyoufu-sho”, but this picture makes me scared. What is this green tape around the Shachihoko?
A long zoom lens and an image crop.
I’ve no idea what the green stuff is. Not tape. Some wire to help hold the Shachihoko in place, maybe.
wow.…you took this picture of Shachihoko??? @_@;;… How??? You cannot take this one even ｂｙ using a “walking stick”.… I’m not a person of “Kousho kyoufu-sho”, but this picture makes me scared. What is this green tape around the Shachihoko?
A long zoom lens and an image crop.
I’ve no idea what the green stuff is. Not tape. Some wire to help hold the Shachihoko in place, maybe.