Dear Alice,
While out for an autumn stroll with my wife’s relatives, I came across what, at first glance, seemed to be a pair of samurai scarecrows! They were nearly as tall as me, made all of straw, and were packing two swords each! Being a savvy kind of farm boy, I figured out pretty quickly that they couldn’t really be scarecrows, because they weren’t near crops but were tied to the gate of a Shinto shrine. This was in a place called Sodegaura, on the Chiba side of the Aqualine bridge-and-tunnel highway from Tokyo. Any chance you can find out what the heck those straw figures are?
Rick B., Funabashi, Chiba Prefecture
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