S P O T ／ SPOT-327

Gama-ishi (Toad Rock), Mount Tsukuba

筑波山ガマ石つくばさんがまいし

On the ridge between the twin peaks of Mount Tsukuba sits a boulder that looks uncannily like a giant toad mid-croak, jaws thrown wide open. This is Gama-ishi, Toad Rock, and the resemblance is pure geology: the rock is gabbro, fractured in many directions as its magma cooled deep underground, then sculpted into a gaping maw by long ages of weathering once it reached the surface. Legend, of course, added a story. In the mid-Edo period a poor medicine peddler named Nagai Heisuke is said to have meditated before this rock for seven days and there devised the famous 'toad-oil seller's patter,' a piece of theatrical street salesmanship that became a regional tradition, giving the rock its name (it was originally the more sober 'Male Dragon Stone'). Today hikers passing on the summit trail keep the toad fed in a different way, tossing pebbles toward the hollow of its mouth in the belief that a stone that lands and stays will grant a wish, leaving a small cairn of hopes inside the stone toad's jaws. It is one of the celebrated strange rocks of the Mount Tsukuba Area Geopark.