Here is the story of how this district  came to be called “Ou”:

Yatsuka-mizuomizuno-no-mikoto, who drew and moved the lands near with strong pulls, once said, “What a young land Izumo, the land of issuing clouds, is, whose shape is like a strip of cloth!  It was made too small in the first creation.  Well then, I will seam some lands together and make the land bigger,” and further, “I wonder if there might be any spare land in the direction of the Cape of Shiragi far away, and do I see there is spare land there,” said the deity.

So he took a hoe as broad and flat as a young maiden’s chest, and cut the spare land apart as if cutting through the gills of a huge sea bass and severing its head, or like  a typhoon cleaving its violent way through the autumn pampas grass.  Then he hitched a strong three-ply rope to it; and saying, “Come, land! Come land!” did he struggle to draw it near; as you would struggle to pull down frost-damaged vines from the trees, or as you would struggle to row a boat upstream.  And the land he drew near and seamed together extended as far east as Kozu, and as far west as the Cape of Kizuki.  The post used for holding the land in place is Mt. Sahime, which marks the border between the land of Iwami and the land of Izumo.  The remains of the strong rope he used formed Naga-hama beach in Sono.

And then he said, “I wonder if there might be any spare land in the direction of the land of Saki, the north gate of Izumo, far away, and do I see there is spare land there.”

So he took a hoe as broad and flat as a young maiden’s chest, and cut the spare land apart as if cutting through the gills of a huge sea bass and severing its head, or like  a typhoon cleaving its violent way through the autumn pampas grass.  Then he hitched a strong three-ply rope to it; and saying, “Come, land! Come land!” did he struggle to draw it near; as you would struggle to pull down frost-damaged vines from the trees, or as you would struggle to row a boat upstream.  And the land he drew near and seamed together extended as far east as Taku, and as far west as Sada.

And then he said, “I wonder if there might be any spare land in the direction of the land of Hara, also the north gate of Izumo, far away, and do I see there is spare land there.”

So he took a hoe as broad and flat as a young maiden’s chest, and cut the spare land apart as if cutting through the gills of a huge sea bass and severing its head, or like  a typhoon cleaving its violent way through the autumn pampas grass.  Then he hitched a strong three-ply rope to it; and saying, “Come, land! Come land!” did he struggle to draw it near; as you would struggle to pull down frost-damaged vines from the trees, or as you would struggle to row a boat upstream.  And the land he drew near and seamed together extended as far east as Unami, and as far west as Kurami.

And then he said, “I wonder if there might be any spare land in the direction of the cape of Tsū in Koshi far away, and do I see there is spare land there.”

So he took a hoe as broad and flat as a young maiden’s chest, and cut the spare land apart as if cutting through the gills of a huge sea bass and severing its head, or like  a typhoon cleaving its violent way through the autumn pampas grass.  Then he hitched a strong three-ply rope to it; and saying, “Come, land! Come land!” did he struggle to draw it near; as you would struggle to pull down frost-damaged vines from the trees, or as you would struggle to row a boat upstream.  And the land he drew near and seamed together was the cape of Miho.  The remains of the strong rope he used formed Yomi-no-shima.  The post used for holding the land in place is Mt. Hi-no-kami-dake in the land of Hōki.

“Now I have finished the land-pulling,” he said and crying, “O-we!”, showed that the land was his own, with the action of thrusting his stick into what we call at present the hill of Ou.  The name Ou came from the deity’s exclamation at the end of the tradition above.  The hill called Ou is an earth mound in rice fields that is situated around the northeast to Kōri-no-miyake, the county office.  It is about sixteen yard around, with a tree on it.

. . . .

Izumo-misaki–yama, or the  Mountain of  August Cape of Izumo: it is 27 ri and 260 bu (about 15.1km) north-west of the kori-no-miyake, the district office; its height 360 jo (about 1069.2m), its circumference 96 ri and 165 bu (about 51.6km).   At the western foot of the mountain there is what is called the August Shrine for the God who created the world under the Heaven (= Izumo-tai-sha).

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【Notes】

(Fujioka says) In my opinion, such a dynamic epic, seen in the section on the historical explanation of the origin of the district name Ou, could not have been created by the ancient people of Izumo after they had surrendered to the Yamato Regime.  In other words, this story should have been made before the people of Izumo were defeated, in the second century as I deduce it.

We may suppose that the prototype of this myth was created as early as the second century.   The Izumo-koku-fudoki , however, was completed at the beginning of eighth century, 733 A.D.   In those days the people in Izumo, we might assume, could not have handed the story on because they did not have so much paper or pencils or other things conveniently available for recording, as we do.   But that is just the common sense of modern people.  Ancient people had excellent Katari-be (reciters), who were professionals with great and amazing memories.  Katari-bes could passed on their collective memories from generation to generation.  Though not many may agree with this idea, I think it was possible for Katari-bes to continue inheriting their predecessors’ memories for several hundred years, and that such oral traditions as had been produced in the second centuries could have survived over to the eighth century and be recorded at last.

The reason why I propose that the prototype myth seemed to have been produced around the second century, is that there are some enigmatic things about this myth.  In the first land-pulling by Yatsuka-mizuomizuno-no-mikoto,  the god used a rope, which formed Naga-hama beach in Sono afterwards     and also used Mt. Sahime as a post, and in his fourth pulling,  he used Yomi-no-shima as the rope and Mt. Hi-no-kami-dake as the post.    Then, why is there no explanation about the second and third pullings?

Or why is it that upon finishing the fourth pulling and crying, “O-we!”, he didn’t  thrust his staff down somewhere nearby such as Mt. Hi-no-kami-dake or Mt. Daisen in Hōki, but thrust it into Kōri-no-miyake, which is far away from where he finished the fourth pulling?

In order to give some satisfactory explanation to these enigmas, I would like to try to develop a hypothesis: that the first part of the four land-pullings, the prototype of the story, was produced in the second century, and it changed through many revisions over a long period of time, growing to become  the final versions as written in the Izumo-koku-Fudoki, with the fourth part becoming somewhat inconsistent  with the first part.

Connecting the myth and the historical facts, let us think about why and how the first part was originally created.  We know the strongest Gōzoku or local ruling clan in the district was the Izumo-no-omi, who was thought to have advanced from east to west, conquering and ruling over the district from the beginning of the fifth century toward the middle of the sixth century.  If the prototype myth was produced in this period, the history seems to contradict the contents of the story, since the land-pulling began from the west and stretched toward the east.  So we can find much more validity in postulating that the first version of the story happened earlier than the time  when Izumo-no-omi began to take.

Another possible reason why the story began at the west of the district would be that the west part, that is, the place around Kitzuki-no-misaki, was a very holy, consecrated place.  This place includes the whole western part of Shimane peninsula and it is worth noting it has the word ‘mi’ in its name which means ‘August,’ in contrast to the east part of the peninsula, Miho-no-saki, the Cape of Miho, which has no such modifier.  So the story began from the sacred place.

In this connection, we can see another example of such a modification in the following  description of Izumo-misaki–yama.

Old Fudokis (including the Izumo-no-kuni–fudoki), in each volume, have the sections for geographical descriptions on mountains, rivers, ponds, or lakes, in each district.  In Izumo-no-kuni–fudoki, there are some descriptions, as you see in the translation above, of Izumo-misaki–yama (yama=mountain).  The Fudoki says that the mountain’s circumference is 96 ri and 165 bu (=about 51.6km).  And it continues, “at the western foot of the mountain there is what is called the August Shrine for the God who created the world under the Heaven(= Izumo-tai-sha).”  The circumference seems to be rather big, or in fact, including not just a single mountain but the whole area of the district, and at its western foot is the holy Kitzuki Shrine (Izumo-tai-sha).  Considering the geographical descriptions with what is mentioned above about Kitzuki-no-misaki, we can identify the place which refers to Kitzuki-no-misaki (The August Cape of Kitzuki) along with the place which refers to Izumo-misaki–yama (the Mountain of August Cape of Izumo).