mid-Heian period · ?–998Fujiwara no Sanekata

A mid-Heian courtier and poet, grandson of a Minister of the Left, who served as a captain of the guards and was famed as a man of elegance at the courts of Emperors Kazan and Ichijō; Sei Shōnagon was among his acquaintances. Appointed governor of Mutsu in 995, he died there after a fall from his horse. A later tale claims the posting was a punishment for knocking off Fujiwara no Yukinari's cap in a quarrel at court. One of the Late Classical Thirty-Six Immortals, he has about sixty-five poems in imperial anthologies.