The origin of lanke comes from a Chinese myth. When a woodcutter ventured into the mountains to gather wood, he saw two immortals (仙人) playing Go and went close to inspect them. The immortals vanished as soon as their game ended, and the woodcutter returned home only to find that hundreds of years had passed. Everyone in his village was gone. The only thing that remained was the axe in his hands, but its wooden handle was rotten with the passing years.