Metori Yusui Spring is one of the “Yatsugatake Nanroku Springs.” It is an important water source that has been used as irrigation water since ancient times, and still supplies a significant portion of tap water in Nagasaka-cho Town.
Regarding the origin of the name “Metori” (literally, “to take the lives of women”), there are legends about a woman and a snake. One legend has it that a young man named Hachizo, who had a girlfriend of a higher social status than him, sought to give her a purse as a token of his sincerity but drowned and died on his way to reaching her. Bitter about the death of her son, Hachizo’s mother Okayo threw herself in the river where her son died and turned into a snake that haunts young girls to death. In another legend, it is said that a little girl named Sayo dropped a purse in the water, and when she tried to pick it up out of the water, she was dragged into the water by the dragon god. In either case, the spring was named “Metori,” because it literally “took the lives of women.”