On the fourth Saturday of January, Nara sets a mountain on fire. Wakakusa-yama is the grass-covered hill that rises directly behind the great temples of the old capital, and the yamayaki—the mountain burning—is the city's strangest and most beautiful winter rite. At dusk, sacred fire from Kasuga Taisha shrine is carried in a torchlight procession to the mountain's foot. Fireworks open the sky. Then, on signal, the dead winter grass is lit along the whole slope at once, and for half an hour a 342-meter mountain burns against the night. Why, exactly, is pleasantly unresolved. One story says the burning settled a boundary dispute between the monks of Todai-ji and Kofuku-ji. Another says it quiets the spirits of the ancient tomb on the summit. A third calls it simply the field-burning that calls in spring. In Nara, a city layered a millennium deep, all three feel true. The image that stays is the skyline: the roof of the Great Buddha hall, the silhouette of the five-storied pagoda, and above them a hill of fire. Nara Park offers the classic close view; the open fields of the Heijo Palace site, a short train ride west, give the full panorama with the city lights below. How well the mountain burns depends on wind and how dry the grass is—some years it roars, some years it smolders. Locals will tell you this is part of the point. Fire, like the old capital itself, does not perform on command.