Riders Shoot Three Targets at a Gallop in Kamakura on the Sixteenth as They Have Since 1187

On Wednesday 16 September, on the last day of the shrine's three-day autumn festival, archers will ride a 250-metre track at Tsurugaoka Hachimangu in Kamakura and shoot at three wooden targets without slowing down. It starts at one in the afternoon and costs nothing to watch.

The targets are about 68 centimetres square and a centimetre thick, set roughly 80 metres apart along the track. The horse holds its pace between them. The archer drops the reins to shoot, which is the entire difficulty of the thing.

The ritual was first performed here in 1187 on the order of Minamoto no Yoritomo, as an offering to the war deity Hachiman and a prayer for peaceful rule. The Ogasawara school, which teaches mounted archery and etiquette together, still performs it.

Accounts of the field differ. One government-backed source describes eighteen riders, the first three in Kamakura-period hunting dress and the remaining fifteen in Edo-period samurai clothing. A French guide to the town describes three archers each making a single run. They are most likely describing different parts of the same afternoon.

The festival runs from the 14th to the 16th every year regardless of which days those fall on, with a portable shrine parade through the streets, tea ceremonies and dance. The shrine is ten minutes' walk from Kamakura station, about an hour out of Tokyo.

The shrine's website is closed to search engines. Anyone wanting this year's programme confirmed will have to telephone.