Fujiwara no Nagako (藤原長子)
FUJIWARA no Nagako (c. 1079 - year of death not known) was a female waka poet in the late Heian period. Her father was Sanuki no Nyodo FUJIWARA no Akitsuna. FUJIWARA no Iemichi (Kunaikyo [Minister of the Sovereign's Household]) was her elder brother. Her name as nyobo (court lady) was Sanuki no suke.
Because her elder sister Kaneko was the wet nurse of the Emperor Horikawa, she started to serve for the Emperor Horikawa in 1100 and was appointed to Naishi no suke (a court lady of the first rank) in 1101. After the Emperor Horikawa died in July 1107, she started to serve for the Emperor Toba from the following year 1108 by the command of the Cloistered Emperor Shirakawa. From the autumn of 1118, however, she often prophesied something on the pretext of being possessed by the spirit of former Emperor, including the prophet concerning FUJIWARA no Shoshi's pregnancy and delivery.
Due to the above, she was regarded in the following year as a lunatic and placed in the custody of her elder brother FUJIWARA no Michitsune after being relieved of the service at court ("Choshuki" [diary of MINAMOTO no Morotoki], October 6, 1119)
Two volumes of her diary 'Sanuki no suke Nikki,' in which she depicted the situations surrounding the Emperor Horikawa until his death, remain. This diary is renown in the history of literature as the one in which a close aide wrote with adoration about an Emperor's death.