Aside from the hook (kagi 鉤) and the fire shelf (hi-dana 火棚) discussed in the last two posts, there are other items associated with and found at or around the irori that are worth mentioning.

One such item is the fairly self-explanatory firewood (maki-gi 薪木) box (hako 箱), called moshigi-ire (もしぎ入れ, ‘firewood container’) in Gunma, ki-wara (きわら), in Toyama, shi-baya (しばや) in Kyо̄to, takimon-buro (たきもんぶろ) in Ishikawa, and so on.

A screen (tsuitate 衝立) is often placed around the firewood box, or around any mess at the irori, to hide these from the entrance. This screen is variously called the soda-gaki (そだがき ‘sleeve fence’), erami (えらみ), mendо̄-gaki (面倒垣 ‘care fence’), and the like.

A delicate semi-permeable *tsuitate* (衝立) is placed between the entrance and the *irori* to screen the ‘mess’ from casual visitors standing in the *doma*.

An additional, smaller screen, called the ita-shо̄ji (板障子, ‘board shо̄ji’), may be placed at the edge of the irori to protect the fire from draughts and prevent sparks from landing on the straw cushions or mats (goza 茣蓙).

An *ita-shо̄ji* (板障子) made with a thick board of Japanese cypress (*hinoki* 桧, *Chamaecyparis obtusa*) and a short length of cypress log (*hinoki-maruta* 桧丸太) split into two halves to form the legs.

The white stool-shaped object seen in the image below, and the upside down tree root bole (ne-moku 根木) in the image below that, are both crude lamps: called hide-bachi (ひでばち), matsu-dai (まつだい, ‘pine platform’), etc., they are for burning scrap wood (ki-kata 木片, lit. ‘timber odds’) on, for the purpose of illumination. Before electricity, thinly split resinous pine (matsu 松) root, white birch (shira-kaba 白樺, Betula platyphylla) bark, and other timbers were burnt on these platforms to provide additional light.

A ‘platform lamp’ (*hide-bachi* ひでばち) next to the *irori* in the former Shiiba family (*Shiiba-ke* 椎葉家) residence, originally in Miyazaki prefecture but now in the Japan Open-Air Folk House Museum in Toyonaka City, О̄aaka Prefecture.

This image shows a ‘platform lamp’ (*hide-bachi* ひでばち) made of an inverted root bole.

From northern Kyо̄to to Hokuriku, and in one particular area in the mountains of Chūbu, there are many minka in which adjustable hooks (jizai-kagi 自在鉤) are not employed, even when a ‘fire shelf’ (hi-dana 火棚) is present. Instead, a large iron trivet (go-toku 五徳, lit. ‘five virtues’) is used. The trivet is also variously called kana-wa (鉄輪, ‘iron ring’), kana-go (かなご, ‘metal go-toku’), or simply kane (かね ‘metal’); large examples might weigh as much as 60 kilograms.