is a hirayama-style Japanese castle located in the Maruoka neighbourhood of the city of Sakai, Fukui Prefecture, in the Hokuriku region of Japan. It also called due to the legend that whenever an enemy approaches the castle, a thick mist appears and hides it. Built at the end of the Sengoku period, the castle was occupied by a succession of daimyō of Maruoka Domain under the Edo period Tokugawa shogunate. The site is now a public park noted for its sakura. The castle’s relatively small tenshu (castle keep) claims to be the oldest in the country, a claim which is challenged by both Inuyama Castle and Matsumoto Castle. Background Maruoka Castle is located on top of a small hill in the plains north of the city of Fukui. The area around the foot of the hill was levelled, and protected by ramparts and a pentagonal-shaped moat. The castle is located on the Hokurikudō highway connecting Kaga Province with Echizen Province, at the juncture of the Mino Kaidō highway connecting inland Mino Province with the Sea of Japan. History Construction Maruoka Castle is considered to have been constructed in 1576 by Shibata Katsutoyo, who was the nephew and adopted son of Shibata Katsuie, one of Oda Nobunaga's leading generals. According to the legend of "O-shizu, Hitobashira" the castle was constructed with a human pillar. During construction the stone base of the tenshu kept collapsing no matter how many times it was piled up. There was one vassal who suggested that they should make someone a human sacrifice (hitobashira) to appease the gods. O-shizu, a one-eyed woman who had two children and lived a poor life, was selected as the Hitobashira. She resolved to become one on the condition that one of her children was taken in by Katsutoyo and made a samurai. Standing in position the base stones were positioned around her, until they eventually crushed her to death. Her sacrifice allowed the construction to be successfully completed. Katsutoyo was however unable to fulfil his promise to O-shizu before he moved to another province. Resentful that her son had not been made a samurai her spirit according to legend would make the moat overflow with spring rain when the season of cutting algae came in April every year. People called it, "the rain caused by the tears of O-shizu's sorrow" and erected a small tomb to soothe her spirit. There was