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History of Yamanaka Onsen

A long time ago, when the capital of Japan was in Nara, a famous monk called Gyoki visited the region of Kaga.
When he reached the Shrine of Sugo, he could see a spectacular violet cloud lingering over the other side of the mountain. "What an unusual sight!" he thought, so he hiked up the mountain, where he encountered an old man in his eighties.

The old man said, "There is a hot spring with perfect temperature here that can cure people's illnesses.
You should dig it up." After leaving Gyoki with these words, the old man disappeared. Gyoki and his samurai companion Enkyu Kano followed the words and began to dig, and hot spring water spurted out from underground.
That night the old man entered into Gyoki's dream and said, "I am the incarnation of the Healing Buddha. This hotspring should be maintained at long last." Gyoki was thrilled after waking up from this dream, that he carved a statue of Healing Buddha out of a log and built a small shrine to protect this hotspring.
Since then many visitors came to Yamanaka Onsen to heal their diseases and rid of their fatigues.
A few hundred years later Japan entered into the era of civil wars, hot springs lost their popularity and the mountain was surrounded by its former silent atmosphere.
However, there was an incident after Heian Era when Nobutsura Hasebe, the lord of Noto, came to Yamanaka for eagle hunting during the Chisho Period.
Lord Hasebe saw a white heron healing its leg injury at a small stream in the folds of the mountain.
Being curious, he walked closer to the heron, and out of nowhere there came a young lady and said, "I am the Healing Buddha.There used to be a hot spring here that cured many people's diseases and illnesses.
I have waited a long time for you. Please open up this hotspring again." After saying so, the young lady stepped onto a cloud and disappeared into the distance.
Although a bit suspicious, Lord Hasebe began to dig anyway.
Not only did he find a 15cm long Healing Buddha in the reed field, hot spring started to ooze out from the ground.Surprised and overjoyed, Lord Hasebe built 12 ryokans in the area for visitors, and this is said to be the start of the ryokans in Yamanaka Onsen.

Kokutani Porcelain

Kokutani Porcelain first started about 300 years ago when the first lord of Daishoji Clan Toshiharu Maeda ordered his retainers Saijiro Goto and Gonzaemon Tamura to build a pottery kiln at Kutani Village upstream of Yamanaka Onsen.
Using the slope of the mountain, they put in a lot of efforts building a kiln with stepped chambers; they also searched for red rocks to use as coloring material for the potteries.
With much dedication and hard work, the world-renowned pottery was created.
As a memorial, a pair of sake bottles with the inscription of "Meireki 1 (1655), Gonzaemon Tamura" was offered to the village shrine and are carefully preserved as the treasure of the village even until now.