There are two stories about the origin of the name “ASHIO”.
One is the “rat story”. According to the story , the kanji for Ashio was written “足緒”.
Long ago, there was a priest called “SHODO-SHONIN”. When he stayed in the mountain of Nikko, he saw a rat with grains of millet and rice.He was so surprised to see the rat in the heart of such a mountain, so he tied a string to the rat's foot, and followed it. At last, he found houses at the foot of a mountain.
“SHODO-SHONIN”named this place“ASHI(meaning one's foot)O(meaning string)”. After that, his pupils were said to come to this place. they trained and built temples there.
Another opinipn relates to Ashio's topographic view. The high point of a mountain range is called “O(meaning tail written“尾”in kanji). So many people think the name “Ashio”came from its topographic condition. It is an interesting fact that there are other areas near Ashio which use the kanji “尾”also.HOSOO is eritten“細尾”in kanji and KASOO is written “粕尾”in kanji.
