Before Yushima, there was another island──
The goddess, Benzai-ten, came to reside here. In Japan, Benzai-ten, affectionately known as Benten-sama, is said to be the goddess of water and is often enshrined where spring water gushes forth. Surely, there must have been someone who thought this to be a fitting place for the goddess.
It was also rumored that a giant turtle used to live in the sea around Benten-shima (Benten Island). Sometimes, the turtle would surface and was so large that boats couldn’t go around it. It was said that if there was a shipwreck offshore from Wakura, this turtle was also what kept the corpses from coming to the surface. This led the island locals to apparently fear the turtle.