 |
 |
-
The Passage of the God and the Hot Springs of Suwa Plenty of people live in Suwa today, but in ancient times it was a terrible place. The bushes and trees were tangled together in a dense jungle, which was inhabited by fierce beasts and poisonous snakes. If anyone did stray into this region, they made sure to get back out as quickly as they could!
But there came a time when a god named Take and a goddess called Yasaka came to the area, and worked to make Suwa a place fit to live in. Take was tall and handsome: His beautiful clothes were as white as the snow and the jewels on his necklace sparkled like his clear eyes. Yasaka was as beautiful as Take was handsome. Her jet-black hair fell far down her back, where it was tied with a yellow rose. She, too, was clothed in pure white robes, and her jewels shone even brighter than those of her husband.
Together, Take and Yasaka plowed the thick jungle into the earth to make rich fields, where rice and other grains could be grown. They constructed boats and taught people to fish on the wide waters of Lake Suwa; they planted mulberry trees and showed people how to harvest the silk from the cocoons of the silkworms that lived on them. The heavenly couple made Suwa a wonderful place for humans to live. They were very glad when they looked on what they had accomplished.
But this happiness did not last. One day Take quarreled with Yasaka over some small thing. The goddess stood up and told Take she would leave him. She took up all her belongings and prepared to go. Last, she dipped a cotton cloth in hot water, thinking to use it to wipe her face during her journey. Yasaka made it as far as Shimo-Suwa, on the north shore of the lake. As she made her way to the north, the hot water from her cloth splashed on the ground; hot springs bubbled up from the earth right at those spots where the water landed.
The spots where just a drop or two of the water from Yasaka's cloth fell, Iijima and Akanuma, became springs where warm water bubbles up. But in places like Owa and Kowada, where more drops fell, large springs with plentiful boiling water burst forth. At the end of her journey, she threw away the cloth. Watanoyu, where it landed, became the site of the hottest spring of all.
Time passed, and Take came to miss his wife. One day, he looked to the north from his home in Shinguji and saw that Lake Suwa had frozen over, giving him a way to walk across and see her once again. He set out across the ice , but being a big and powerful god, his weight cracked the ice, raising a rift in it all the way across the lake surface! He made it across, though, and the two had a happy reunion. They decided to meet again each winter.
So it is that every year, after the cold winds of winter freeze the lake, a long crack running from south to north appears in the ice. People say when this happens that Take has gone to be with Yasaka, and they celebrate the event, calling it the "passage of the god." Even today, you can witness this sight as you soak in one of the hot springs that lie in a long line, from Shinguji in the south to Shimo-Suwa in the north.