Matsue Castle was completed in 1611 for the Lord Horio, before it passed in 1638 into the Matsudaira family who ruled Izumo Province for more than 230 years. Fantastically grim, the thing is, wrote Lafcadio Hearn of this place, and grotesquely complex in detail .... the creation is a veritable architectural dragon, made up of magnificent monstrosities.