Oiran Buchi
A gorge in Yamanashi Prefecture attached to one of Japan's grimmer traditions. In the sixteenth century, the account goes, when the Kurosawa gold mine was closed, fifty-five courtesans who knew the layout of the workings were led onto a suspended platform above the river — and the ropes were cut. There is nothing to confirm it historically, but the site is formally treated as a place of remembrance, and the bridge has the reputation to match.
The Black Climber
A figure in black who appears in the mountains: in some accounts he helps the lost, in others he leads them off the path. The legend is common to Soviet mountaineering as a whole and has been recorded in the Caucasus, the Tian Shan and the Pamirs; each region has its own version of who he was in life — usually somebody who was abandoned on a rope. The story has a practical point, and it explains its durability: it says out loud what actually happens in mountains, and what that world fears more than dying.
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