AT A GLANCE
Why go?
On a quiet plateau at the foot of Mount Masugata in Minamiuonuma, Niigata, Omatsu Pond (お松の池) is a gently rounded lake about a kilometre around, ringed by cherry trees, walking paths and small shrine islands. It is named for a heartbreaking local legend of a young bride, and today it is at once a flower-viewing spot, a place to stroll and fish, and one of the gentlest corners of the Uonuma highland parks.↗↗↗
A pond born of a weaver's sorrow
Omatsu Pond carries the name—and the grief—of O-matsu, a bride who, according to local tradition, married into the snow country from a warmer land far to the south. In those days a woman was considered an adult only when she could work the loom, and her mother-in-law pressed her hard to master the craft. O-matsu struggled, and despairing that she would never live up to the teaching she had been given, she set her heart on weaving one last, perfect cloth before she was to leave the family. She poured her life into that final piece, and it turned out to be a masterwork that fetched a high price. But by the time her proud mother-in-law came to praise her, O-matsu had already thrown herself into the pond above Koguriyama. The story of her regret and the mother-in-law's tears is still told here, and it is the reason the water is called O-matsu's pond.
