The Camphor of Kofuji Tenmangu

Its long limbs reach out over the roof of the shrine it stands beside, which is the first thing you notice and the reason to come. The shrine is the Tenmangu of Shima-Kofuji, a village shrine in Itoshima dedicated to Sugawara no Michizane, the ninth-century scholar worshipped across Kyushu as Tenjin, the god of learning. Its yearly festival falls in late September. The village shares its name with the nickname of Mount Kaya, the 365-metre former volcano above this part of the Itoshima peninsula, which people here call Kofuji, Little Fuji, for its shape. The tree has no record we can find, and no register lists it. What we have is one visit on a clear autumn morning in 2026: a camphor rising from the stone wall beside the shrine's steps, a trunk about seven metres round by the visitor's estimate, and a crown so wide it shades the whole approach. Nobody has dated it and we do not guess. If you go with a tape, measure it at chest height and tell us. If you know the village, tell us what they call this tree.