About Kojoro Pond

Deep in Kurama, in a place called Ikegatani, there is a pond named Kojoro-ga-ike. This is the story told about its name.

Long ago, a household in Kurama had a maid called Kojoro. Her first task each morning was to cut grass to feed the cattle and horses the family kept. Fresh grass grew, they say, along the edge of the pond below the pass.

The mornings were early, and there was no time to do her hair. Kojoro would set out with a comb tucked in her sleeve, and when she had finished cutting the grass she would use the surface of the pond as a mirror, comb her hair, tidy herself and go home. She did this every day - without knowing that a great serpent living at the bottom of the pond was watching her.

One summer, heavy rain fell on Kurama. Water poured in from every valley, the pond overflowed, the bank gave way, and the water rushed out into the Kurama River. At that moment, they say, something like a great log came down from upstream, calling "Kojoro, Kojoro."

Kojoro answered as she was called, "Yes, yes," jumped onto the log, and was carried away down the river. What she had taken for a log was the serpent that lived in the pond.

From then on the pond was called Kojoro-ga-ike. Even now the mountains press in on both sides of that valley; it is damp, and not an especially pleasant place.

Told to us by an elder of this area.