Semimaru

Semimaru was a blind lute player who lived alone in a straw hut in Ausaka, which means "meeting slope".

Its apex is a narrow pass through the eastern range of mountains separating Kyoto from the area of Lake Biwa."

According to the Konjaku Monogatarishū (Book 24, tale 23), for three years Minamoto no Hiromasa travelled from the capital regularly, hoping to hear and meet Semimaru.

Finally, they met and Semimaru tutored him in playing the biwa (琵琶) melodies Ryūsen (流泉) and Takuboku (啄木).

[1]: 165–168 In nō there is a Zeami Motokiyo play, Semimaru,[3] that depicts the life of a "young man, blind from birth...abandoned on a mountainside by his father", and his sister, Sakagami (逆髪), "a beautiful young woman" that "suffers episodes of inexplicable madness which compel her to wander the countryside aimlessly.