Tono Furusato Village

Kunio Yanagita published Tono Monogatari in 1910, a collection of the tales told in this valley - of kappa in the rivers, of zashiki-warashi, the child spirits that bring fortune to a house, of the mountain people - and it founded Japanese folklore studies as a discipline. The village collects several magariya, the L-shaped farmhouses of this region, in which the stable formed a wing at right angles to the living quarters so that horses were kept inside the house; Tono bred horses and the arrangement kept them warm and watched. The buildings are thatched, dark inside, with irori hearths kept smoking to preserve the thatch, and staff work them - weaving, cooking, tending the fields around. Storytellers narrate the tales in the local dialect at set times. It is a working demonstration farm rather than a static museum.

What you actually see

• Magariya - L-shaped farmhouses with the stable built into the living quarters.
• Smoking hearths - irori kept burning to preserve the thatch above them.
• Working demonstration - staff weaving, cooking and farming the surrounding land.
• Storytelling - the Tono tales narrated in dialect at set times.

When to go

April to November. Half a day. Winter is snowbound and services reduce.

Honest expectations

Storytelling is in the local dialect and hard to follow even for Japanese speakers. The site is well outside Tono town and buses are infrequent. Interiors are dark and smoky by design. Winter closes much of the programme.

Nearby

Tono town and its folk museums are north-east; Kappabuchi stream is nearby.