Yaizu Shrine, Shinto shrine in Yaizu, Shizuoka, Japan

Yaizu Shrine is a Shinto shrine in Yaizu, Shizuoka Prefecture, with a wooden main hall (honden) built in 1603 by Tokugawa Ieyasu in the nagare-zukuri style, its sweeping dark brown roof extending forward over the entrance steps. The facade below the eaves has a row of rectangular windows and doors, and a thick twisted straw rope with white zigzag paper streamers hangs across the entrance. A low wooden railing runs along the front, and a raised stone platform with steps leads up to the entrance.

Yaizu Shrine's foundation date is unknown; shrine tradition holds it was founded in 409 AD. It appears in the Engishiki records of 927 as one of four shrines in Mashizu District of Suruga Province. The Imagawa clan patronized it in the Muromachi period with revenues of 500 koku, reduced to 70 koku by the Tokugawa shogunate in the Edo period. In 1883 it was ranked a Prefectural Shrine.

The shrine's former name, Irie Daimyojin, appears in a 1561 vermilion-sealed letter from Imagawa Ujizane, now a Yaizu city cultural property. The annual festival on August 13, called Aramatsuri, sends two mikoshi, a male and a female palanquin, jostling roughly through the streets; the rougher the swaying, the more active the kami are believed to be.

Yaizu Shrine is about a 15-minute walk from JR Yaizu Station on the Tokaido Main Line. The main festival, the Aramatsuri, takes place on August 12 and 13, when two mikoshi are carried through the city. The shrine grounds contain several subsidiary shrines, including a branch of Suga Shrine in Yaizu 5-chome.

The shrine claims to hold one of the two magic stones that, with the Kusanagi sword, saved Yamato Takeru from a grass fire; the sword and the other stone are kept at Atsuta Shrine in Nagoya. The shrine also stands on the spot where it says his escape took place.