Go story and poem

Graphic art from Go World magazine, No. 81

Chinese legends abound of people who had chance meetings in the mountains with immortals. The legend of Wang Chih, a woodcutter, has survived the ages.

From Go World magazine, No. 69, Kiseido Pubishing

Wang Chih was a hardy young fellow who used to venture deep into the mountains to find suitable wood for his axe. One day he went farther than usual and became lost. He wandered for a while and eventually came upon two strange old men who were playing go, their board resting on a rock between them. Wang Chih was fascinated. He put down his axe and began to watch. One of the players gave him something like a date to chew on, so that he felt neither hunger nor thirst. As he continued to watch he fell into a sort of trance for what seemed like an hour or two. When he awoke, however, the two old men were no longer there. He found that his axe handle had rotted to dust and he had grown a long beard. When he got back to his native village he discovered that his family had disappeared and that no one even remembered his name.

Inspired by the legend, Ki no Tomonori, a Japanese poet and court official, returned to his home capital from a distant land circa A.D. 900 and wrote:

I've come back home/
There is no friend to play go with/
That place far away/
where an axe handle turned to dust--/
how dear to me it has become!