In the winter of 1682, a massive fire swept through Edo, present-day Tokyo. Known as the “Great Tenna Fire” it raged through the city’s crowded wooden districts, destroying thousands of homes and leaving many people homeless. Among the displaced was a teenage girl named Yaoya Oshichi, the daughter of a greengrocer who lived in the Hongō district. Seeking refuge, her family went to a nearby temple, where Oshichi met and fell in love with a young temple priest. That fleeting encounter would ignite a passion so powerful it would ultimately consume her life.
Japanese wood block print depicting Yaoya Oshichi climbing the clock tower. By Utagawa Kunisada, 1866. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
When the new year came, the family returned home, but Oshichi could not forget the boy she had met amid the chaos of the fire. In her youthful longing, she conceived a desperate plan: if another fire broke out, her family might once again seek shelter at the temple—and she could see her beloved once more.
Oshichi attempted to set her neighbourhood ablaze. Her act, however, was discovered almost immediately. Edo authorities, ever vigilant against the city’s most dreaded disaster, arrested her and charged her with arson, one of the most serious crimes in Tokugawa Japan. Fires were a constant threat to Edo, whose densely packed wooden structures could ignite into citywide conflagrations within hours. Consequently, arson was punished by death.
Oshichi’s trial was conducted by the city magistrate, who took pity on the girl. He asked whether she was fifteen—an age that would have spared her under Tokugawa law, which prohibited the execution of minors. But Oshichi, unaware that the question was meant to save her, replied truthfully that she was sixteen. The magistrate tried to silently communicate to her what he was asking. He repeated, "You must be fifteen years old, are you not?". But Oshichi again failed to get the hint, and honestly stated her age as sixteen, leaving the magistrate with no alternative but to sentence her to death.
On March 29, 1683, she was executed by burning at the stake at Suzugamori, the official site for public executions south of Edo.
The Execution of Yaoya Oshichi. Japanese wood block print from 1851. Credit: Fujiarts
The case of Yaoya Oshichi quickly entered popular consciousness. Her youth, beauty, and the idea that she had acted out of love inspired ballads and street performances within years of her death. Over time, her story passed from historical record into the realm of theatre and legend. By the 18th century, Yaoya Oshichi had become a popular subject in joruri (puppet theatre) and kabuki, where her story was retold with dramatic embellishment and moral overtones.
There is a memorial to Oshichi at Enjō-ji in Tokyo today. Her effigy is often decorated with hot earthen plates called hooroo, which are placed on the head to symbolically take away the heat from the fire of the stake that Oshichi was sentenced upon. Cooking pots and origami cranes are still offered to this day.
Grave of Yaoya Oshichi in Tokyo, Japan. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Yaoya Oshichi’s foolish act also gave rise to a strange superstition.
In traditional East Asian astrology, every year is assigned both one of the twelve zodiac animals and one of the five elements (wood, fire, earth, metal, water), cycling every sixty years. When the element “fire” coincides with the animal “horse”, the result is Hinoe Uma, the “Fire Horse.”
The horse itself is associated with passion, restlessness, and vitality—traits considered desirable in moderation, but dangerous when excessive. Combined with fire, it was thought to create an especially volatile temperament.
Yaoya Oshichi is thought to have been born in 1666, the year of the Fire Horse. However, contemporary trial reports and early narratives give her age at trial as about sixteen, which creates a chronological mismatch if you take 1666 as her birth year. (Because of East-Asian age reckoning, a person born in 1666 would be counted as about 18 in 1683.) Many scholars and reference notes therefore treat her exact birth year as uncertain, however, later accounts and theatrical retellings place Yaoya Oshichi’s birth in 1666—firmly linking her story to the Fire-Horse superstition.
Also read: The Arsonist Who Set Fire to an Ancient Wonder of The World So That People Would Remember Him
According to this superstition, girls born in a Fire Horse year would grow up to be headstrong, difficult, and even destructive to their husbands and families. Such women, it was believed, brought misfortune upon their households. The Hinoe-uma (Fire Horse) superstition has continued even into the twentieth century.
In 1906 (which was a Fire Horse year), Japanese census and family registration records show a 4% drop in the number of births compared with adjacent years. In some cases, the births of boys were reported to have been shifted to the year before or after they were actually born, as many couples deliberately postponed pregnancies or possibly resorted to abortion or infanticide to avoid bearing a daughter under the ill-omened sign.
Around 1924, when women born in 1906 were of marriageable age, there was a series of stories denying the superstition and reports of suicides of women whose marriage proposals were broken off, suggesting that the superstition of fire horse births affected women's marriages.
The novelist Ango Sakaguchi, who was born in this year, was given the name Heigo, which means fire horse and left a story in his writings about how he was told by relatives that it was "lucky he was born a man". Sakaguchi predicted that this superstition would not go away, which would turn out to be the case in 1966.
Scene from “Date Musume Koi no Higanoko” depicting Yaoya Oshichi and the bell tower. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
By the 1960s, Japan was a modern industrial nation, but the old superstition persisted. In 1966, the effect was unmistakable and widely reported. The Japan Statistical Yearbook records that the total number of births in 1966 dropped by roughly 25% compared to 1965 — from about 1.8 million to 1.35 million. Many couples avoided having children or had abortions, especially in rural and regional areas. In the years immediately following, there was a minor “baby boom”, as couples who had delayed pregnancy resumed childbearing.
Newspapers of the time published editorials discussing the phenomenon as a “mass psychological effect,” while the government publicly urged couples not to take the superstition seriously.
The next Fire Horse year is 2026, but a report on World Bank’s website indicates that there will be very few families who care about this superstition.
References:
# Japanese Folktales; Yaoya Oshichi; Wa; Art, tamamushi.livejournal.com
# Hooroku Jizo Mibu, WASHOKU
# Fire Horse, Wikipedia
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