Kuro-shima (Ehime)

Kuro-shima (黒島) is a small, uninhabited island in the Uwa Sea (Pacific Ocean) off the coast of Shikoku, Japan.

Though the island is uninhabited now, in the 13th-century text A Collection of Things Heard, Ancient and Modern (古今著聞集, Kokon chomon shū) is written the following legend:[1] In the Antei era (1227–1229), in the Yano area of the Iyo Province there was an island called Kuro-shima.

By every shore of the island the light glowed so brightly that he gleefully put out his nets, only to find that there were no fish at all.

The island thus became full of rats, which ate all of the crops, and made the land infertile to this day.

Though rats can of course be found on land, what a strange thing it is that they would be at the bottom of the sea!This Ehime Prefecture location article is a stub.