Although he only gives a brief account of it, Basho and Sora spent some ten days in the area of Kurobane. Basho says he visited his friend who was looking after the local domain while its lord was away. Actually, the lord of the domain, Ozeki Masunaga, and Masushige, his son and heir, had both died the previous year, so when Basho arrived at Kurobane, the official lord of the doman was Masunaga's four year old grandson, Masugaki who was being raised in Edo and he did not set foot in his domain until some eighteen years later. In the meantime, Joboji lived in the lord's mansion and ruled the area. In another work Basho describes the mansion as being surrounded by mountains and pines, a place where you can hear running water and the songs of birds. It was clearly a splendid residence. Their stay, however, was a little more complicated than Basho suggests. According to Sora's diary they spent the night of 4.3 at Yose, but the nights of 4.4 through 4.10 at Kurobane, 4.11 through 4.14 at Yose again, 4.15 at Kurobane, and then went on to Takahisa on the sixteenth.

Apparently what happened was that Basho arrived at Kurobane on the third, heard that his friend Tosui was living nearby at Yose, so he continued on to that place to spend the night, but was summoned back to Kurobane the following day by Joboji. We may wonder why Basho gives the opposite sequence of events in his account. Joboji was Tosui's elder brother, and being in charge of the local manor was clearly in a superior social position. Basho was caught in the classic conflict between giri and ninjo. In the end, Basho wrote the account the way he did to show respect for Joboji by saying they visited him first, although it was Tosui, the younger brother who was Basho's close personal friend and the reason for visiting the area. Indeed, Basho seems surprised at how pleased Joboji was by their visit.

The dog-shooting ground was a kind of enclosure surrounded by a bamboo fence where men on horseback competed by shooting arrows at dogs who ran loose inside the coraal. This was an early form of archery practice that developed in the late Heian and early Kamakura periods as courtly society gave way to warrior society. According to legend, this dog shooting archery practice was initiated by Miura no Suke Akira who shot the bewitching fox demon Tamamo here on the Nasu Plain. The story of this is found in the No play "Sesshoseki". Today traces still remain of an earthen embankment that surrounded the dog shooting area.

Lady Tamamo was a fox spirit disguised as a beautiful and seductive woman. The story originally came from India where Kalmasapada was a legendary king. He was born of a union between his father and a female tiger. Thus his legs were striped and he was ferocious by nature. He ate children and eventually became celebrated as a demon king. In T'ang China the story revolves around the phantom queen Hoji. In Japan this same figure appears as Lady Tamamo, beloved of the Emperor Toba-in. Her fox spirit was exorcised by Yasube no Yasunari and forced to reveal its true form, she was then pursued to the Plain of Nasu where she was shot by Miura no Suke Akira, creating a model for the dog shooting competition. Her malignant spirit lingered in the area and was transformed into the Sesshoseki, the poisonous stone. Eventually, through the guidance of Minamoto Kazunao, she achieved enlightenment and became a Buddha. All this is dramatized in great detail in the No play "Sesshoseki."

Nasu no Yoichi was a hero of The Tales of the Heike where he is celebrated for a great feat of marksmanship when he shot a fan from the mast of an enemy ship. As a rewoard for this achievement, he was given control of five provinces after the war. Later he took the tonsure and became a priest at Fushimi near Kyoto. According to the war tale The Tales of the Heike and other war chronicles Yoichi prayed for divine assistance to the god of the Nasu Yuzen Jinja, not the Minami Kanemaru Jinja which Basho visited. Presumably when Basho visited the shrine he was old that this was the place Yoichi had prayed to and he accepted that.

Shugendo is a secet of ascetic Buddhist priests founded by En no Ozuno Gyoja. These priests perform exorcisms by burning sesame seeds, practice divination, pray, and practice austerities. The sect originated on Mount Kinbusen in Yoshino and the priests associated with the sect are usually to be found on high peaks and remote valleys. The priests wear a distinctive pill-box cap, a stole, carry a heavy knife, an iron tipped staff, and blow a conch shell. They are known to sleep in the open air and are called Yamabushi. Such priests often figure in stories and legends.

The Komyoji Temple no longer exists. Before Nasu no Yoichi set out for the battle at Yashima where he distinguished himself, he prayed for success to the Buddha at Komyoji in Fushimi near Kyoto. In 1186, after his success in battle, he returned from the war and built a temple here in his homeland which he also called Komyoji. The temple was later rebuilt and became a Shugendo temple. When Basho visited here, the wife of the chief priest was his friend Tosui's sister. In this temple was a statue of En no Gyoja, the founder of the sect. He was depicted as wearing very tall clogs, carrying a staff, and wearing robes made of leaves. At this timple they had a special sort of one-toothed clog of the sort En no Gyoja was supposed to have used and the temple also sold charms intended to ward off or cure disease and injury to the foot or leg.

En no Gyoja was a mountain recluse and ascetic who lived during the Nara period. At first he practiced his austerities in the mountains of Yoshino where he built temples on a number of mountains. At the age of 32 he went into a rock cave where he remained for more than 30 years, dressed in wisteria leaves and eating pine needles. He was believed to fly through the air riding the clouds and to be able to exorcize both gods and demons. These supernatural powers were envied by one of his disciples, Karakuni no Muraji Hirotani, who denounced him which led to his being sent into exile from 699- 701. When his exile was forgiven he is said to have climbed Mount Fuji to practice his austerities there. Tsubouchi Shoyo wrote a three act play based on these legends in 1917. For more on ascetic Buddhist practices, see Carmen Blacker, The Catalpa Bow.

In the poem Basho uses the term "natsuyama," summer mountains as a seasonal word. This can mean either that they are among the mountains, or that they are facing the mountains that lie before them. If the latter is the case, then they would be praying to En no Gyoja for the strength and determination to deal with these forthcoming hardships. The image of the mountains here is a dual one. On the one hand the mountains are fresh and green and although they are a formidible barrier, Basho also looks forward to the challenge. There is also an element of humor here as the two pilgrims worship not the saint, but the saint's shoes. The last line of the poem, "Kadode kana," means, "We set out!" or "Here we go!" Once again the emphasis is on making a point of departure. They want to follow in the footsteps of the saint and to be favored with his blessing as well. Worshipping the saint's shoes is a way of asking for a safe trip. Although they have already come some considerable way on their journey, they can now see the mountains of Michinoku rising before them, and the sense of their journey is profound.

Notice how the sense of humor that we saw earlier when they required the quidance of a horse to lead them on their way is echoed here when they pray to the shoes rather than the saint. In the same way, their sense of departure that we saw at Fukagawa and again at Senju, is echoed here again as though they have not quite gotten into the real part of the trip yet.