There¡¯s a folk tale that has been handed down for generations in Ojiya, a small city in Japan¡¯s northwestern Niigata Prefecture known for its traditional textile industry and nationally recognized crop, the koshihikari variety of rice.
According to ¡°The Legends of Ojiya,¡± a book published in 1979, near the town¡¯s Mitsuboshi-ya liquor store once stood a centuries-old cedar, planted back in 1658. There was nothing special about the tree, goes the story, but one day it began to leak sake ¡ª a lot of sake.
¡°It was the end of 1916,¡± the narrator says. ¡°One morning, I woke up to find a split in the trunk of a cedar. While I was thinking, ¡®That¡¯s strange,¡¯ a white, watery substance began to flow out with a gurgling sound.¡±
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