The story
Chichibu Night Festival in Chichibu
Chichibu Night Festival, the December 2 and 3 grand festival of Chichibu Shrine, features six ornate floats, two flower-parasol kasaboko and four musician-carrying yatai, built using nail-free wooden joinery. The festival's climax comes as floats are hauled up a steep slope toward the shrine's resting place, accompanied by fireworks, ranking it among Japan's three great float festivals.
Chichibu Night Festival serves as the annual grand festival of Chichibu Shrine, a site whose own founding is thought to predate the festival by many centuries, though the celebration in something close to its current form is generally traced to the Kanbun era beginning in 1661, when it developed out of an older event called the Kinu no Takamachi, a large silk market that once drew merchants from across the region.