On Some Mountain Names and Other Essays

Which peak did the old pilgrims of Tateyama mean by "Behind-Tateyama"? Why is the goddess of Fuji called Asama, and why do the shrines of Chichibu lend out wolves? Kogure Ritarō, a pioneer of Japanese mountaineering and a tireless reader of old maps and gazetteers, sets out to find out.

In these three essays, first published between 1917 and 1928, he weighs an 1838 patrol report from the Kurobe forests against Edo-period gazetteers to identify a lost mountain name; describes his party's crossing of a fearsome notch on the Kashimayari ridge with the famous guide Chōjirō; and, in a long talk given to a Tokyo climbing club, ranges from the Man'yōshū poems on Fuji and Tateyama to dragon gods, rain gods, taro shrines and the wolf messengers of Mitsumine. His etymologies, drawn from the speculative comparative philology of the 1920s, are translated as he wrote them and explained in the translator's note and endnotes.

Each work is translated complete from the Japanese, with endnotes on places, texts and customs, and source information.