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Daisen-Oki NP, Shimane
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A 1983 farm-improvement photo hinted at buried trees, but a standing cedar was not found beneath a rice paddy until 1998. Excavation revealed 32 upright trunks from a forest buried about 3,500 years ago.
In the 8th-century Izumo Fudoki, Sanbe appears as Sahime-yama and, with Mount Daisen, serves as a giant peg anchoring the ropes with which the gods hauled new lands into Shimane.
Soba has grown around Sanbe since the Edo period. It became popular after a hot-spring bathhouse opened in 1877, and an army canteen later spread its fame. The local heirloom crop gained Japan’s GI protection in 2020.
Sanbe’s broad meadows are not simply wild: generations of cattle grazing, grass cutting and controlled spring burns kept trees from taking over. These working grasslands also shelter rare meadow wildlife.
Four of Sanbe’s peaks are named O-sanbe, Me-sanbe, Ko-sanbe and Magosanbe—male, female, child and grandchild. These rounded lava domes ring the mountain’s central hollow.
At Himenogaike Pond on Sanbe’s northern foothills, iris roots weave into floating islands that once drifted with the wind. The irises are a prefectural natural monument, cared for by local volunteers.
At Sanbe’s western foot, Ukifuno Pond formed when volcanic debris blocked a valley. Much of its water is thought to well up from the lakebed, and the pond is the source of the Shizuma River.
Ukifuno Pond is one proposed setting for a Man’yōshū poem by Kakinomoto no Hitomaro about picking water chestnuts. The famous poem dates to Japan’s 8th century, but its exact location is not certain.
In local legend, a young woman drowned in Ukifuno Pond after an encounter with a serpent, and her robe floated on the water. The tale is said to explain the pond’s name, meaning “floating cloth.”
Muro-no-uchi Pond sits in Sanbe’s central volcanic hollow, but it is not simply water filling a crater. A slope collapse laid down debris that formed a basin where rainwater could collect.
Near Muro-no-uchi Pond, a rocky spot called Torijigoku, or “Bird Hell,” releases small amounts of carbon dioxide. The gas can collect in low hollows, where dead insects and small reptiles have been found.
