Sansho the Bailiff: Naoetsu, Tango and Sado

The legend begins at the port of Naoetsu. In the tale, the mother and her two children are carried off near the Ōge Bridge. In Mori Ōgai's 1915 retelling, a boatman who calls himself Yamaoka appears, and the family is tricked and split up. The film dates the journey to 1083. The old bridge is gone: the Naoetsu Bridge there today was rebuilt in 1988, and its railing carries panels of Anju and Zushiō.

Precisión del lugar: The legend only places the abduction near the old Ōge Bridge; the pin marks the modern Naoetsu Bridge that preserves its name and story.

The children are sold to Sanshō, whose estate lies in Tango Province. In Mori Ōgai's retelling the work is relentless: Anju draws seawater at the shore while Zushiō cuts brushwood on the hillside. Yura, at the mouth of the Yura River, was once a busy river-trade port and is said to be the model for Ōgai's setting. The film also sets the estate in Tango.

Precisión del lugar: Yura is only said to be the model for the setting; no site of Sanshō's estate is known, so the pin marks the Yura area.

Zushiō's escape leads to a temple. In the legend, he runs to the Kokubunji of Tango, where a priest hides and helps him. In Ōgai's retelling, people go out from the Kokubunji in every direction the next day. Tango Kokubunji stands in Miyazu on a rise above the north shore of the Aso Sea, an inner bay in northern Kyoto.

Precisión del lugar: The tale names only the Kokubunji of Tango; Miyazu's Tango Kokubunji is the nearest provincial temple of that name, not a proven match.

The priest brings Zushiō toward the capital and takes his leave at a Gongen hall on the Shujaku fields. In the film, the Chief Advisor realises who the boy is when he sees his statuette of Kannon. In Ōgai's version, Zushiō is made governor of Tango that autumn. The stop has no pin because the tale gives no street, only the fields and a hall.

Precisión del lugar: The tale names only the Shujaku fields and a hall; the exact spot in Kyoto is not given, so this stop has no pin.

The mother is rowed north to Sado, while the children are taken south. Years later Zushiō crosses to the island as governor and searches for her, but her whereabouts are not easily found. In the film they meet on a beach, where Tamaki, now blind, takes him for a trickster until he gives her the Kannon statuette. Sado is Japan's sixth largest island.

Precisión del lugar: The sources place the final reunion somewhere on Sado without naming the spot; the pin marks the island.

The tale kept growing after its last scene. On Mount Iwaki in Tsugaru, Anju is said to be enshrined. Local folk belief held that when people from Tango entered the Hirosaki domain, Anju's vengeful spirit brought disaster. The belief is known as Tango weather. It is folklore, not part of the main story.

Precisión del lugar: Folk tradition ties Anju to the mountain in general; no specific shrine or spot from the story is identified.