Tradition / Region: Japanese Mythology
Alternate Names: Crying Tree, Weeping Tree
Category: Plant
The Myth
Along National Route 234 in Sakuragaoka, Kuriyama Town, there once stood a great Japanese elm known as the Naki — the Crying Tree. For many years it grew beside the road near the Kuriyama Tunnel, and travelers came to know it as a place where something unseen lingered.
During the Taishō era, when the road was being widened, workers tried to cut the tree down to straighten the route. As their saws bit into the trunk, a strange sound was said to echo from the wood — a thin, drawn-out cry like “squeak, squeak” or a long, wavering wail. Word spread quickly, and soon people whispered that the tree itself was crying out.
Misfortune followed those who tried to harm it. Men who struck it with axes fell ill, others were injured when they tried to pull it down, and some were said to have died. Fearing a curse, the workers abandoned the attempt and left the tree standing. The road was completed with a bend around it, as if the tree had forced the path to yield.
People believed the tree was inhabited by restless spirits. Some said it held the souls of prisoners from the Ichikichi Penal Colony who had died during the brutal labor of tunnel construction in the Meiji era. Others spoke of a cook who hanged herself after mistreatment, or of a young Ainu girl and a Japanese man who had taken their lives together. The tree became known as a place where grief had taken root.
Stories gathered around it. There were tales of accidents in front of the tree, of a taxi driver who vanished nearby, and of travelers who felt watched as they passed. When the branches were cut away after the trunk was felled, those who took the wood home were said to meet with misfortune. One old man burned a branch he had taken, only to die before winter passed. Another who tried to keep a piece of the stump dreamed of dreadful visions and hurried to return it.
In time, even construction work elsewhere was linked to the tree’s spirit. When concrete refused to harden during tunnel building in the late 1940s, workers offered sacred sake and prayers at the tree. Afterward, the work was said to proceed without trouble.
Though feared, the Crying Tree was also cherished by locals, who saw it as a witness to the hardships and tragedies of the past. In 1970, a drunken worker finally cut it down with a chainsaw, dismissing the old stories as superstition. Rumors later spread of misfortune following him, though some said he lived on without harm.
The stump remained, and the road’s curve stayed in place as if still honoring the tree. Years later, a young elm believed to have grown from its seed was planted nearby and called the Second Crying Tree, so that the memory of the old one — and the stories rooted in it — would not disappear.
Gallery
Sources
Tyz-Yokai Blog. (n.d.). Naki. Retrieved March 1, 2026, from https://tyz-yokai.blog.jp/archives/1078430827.html
Interpretive Lenses
Religious Readings
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Political / Social Readings
- Marxist Deep Dive