Takahan Ryokan some of the author's personal effects. Takahan Ryokan Takahan Ryokan is an historic ryokan (Japanese inn) located in Yuzawa, Niigata Prefecture, Japan. The inn is over 800 years old. The inn has an onsen (bath) called "Tamago no Yu" (English: egg-water) that is supplied by natural hot springs with a slight amount of sulfur. The inn has approximately 20,000 annual visitors, many of whom visit to soak in Tamago no Yu. The setting for the book "Snow Country" authored by Yasunari Kawabata is based upon Takahan Ryokan's location. The inn has preserved the room that Kawabata stayed and wrote in
Tales of a Wayside Inn and her family. Henry Ford bought the inn in 1923, restored it, and donated it to a charitable foundation. It remains as an operating inn to this day. Most of the stories were derived by Longfellow from his wide reading — many of them from the legends of continental Europe, a few from American sources. The best known inclusion is the previously-published poem "Paul Revere's Ride". It also includes "The Saga of King Olaf", a poem which Longfellow started writing as early as 1856, making it the oldest in the collection. While assembling the collection, he originally intended to use