The original poem refers to the hiragana character shi し, being drawn upon the mountain. This is in reference to a story about the actions of the monk Ikkyū 一休 (1394-1481) on a visit to Hiei. Reputed to be an illegitimate child of Emperor Gokomatsu 後小松 (1377-1433; r. 1382-1412), Ikkyū was famous as a composer of comic poetry, and also for his eccentric behaviour, in part in protest at the corruption of the Zen Buddhist establishment. According to the story, on visiting Hiei, he was asked to write something ‘in big enough characters for all the monks to read’. He promptly rolled a roll of paper down the mountainside and, taking up a large brush, ran down the mountain writing a giant し as he did so. In Bashô ’s poem, the single vertical line of the hiragana character has been blown into a horizontal line of haze across the mountain.