The light comes down to the town.

In summer, the women of Yamaga carry golden lanterns on their heads and dance. In winter the arrangement reverses. The light stays still. Along the old Buzen-kaido, for a kilometre between the Yachiyoza playhouse and the Sakura-yu bathhouse, shapes of paper umbrella and cut bamboo are set out, and several thousand candles are lit. It is the visitor who moves.

This was umbrella country once. The town lays that memory back down in the shape of umbrellas. Bamboo is cut, drilled, filled with flame. The people doing the work are university students, shopkeepers, local architects; volunteers to light the candles are recruited every year. It feels less like a festival than like a town at work together.

Fridays and Saturdays in February only - eight nights in all. If it rains, the lights are called off. Inside the Yachiyoza, a wooden playhouse and an Important Cultural Property, the Yamaga drums and the lantern dance share a stage.

You could say it was invented for visitors, and you would be right. But each candle is lit by hand, one at a time.