Week 7 Reading Notes A: Japanese Mythology

One day Susa-no-wo saw an omen and journeyed far into the forest to learn more. He came across a man with a gray bear and an old woman who was crying. Between them was a fair maiden.

"Who are you? Gods or Mortals?" asked Susa.

The man responds, "I am the foot-stroke elder. This is my wife the hand-stroke elder, and this is our daughter, the fair princess."

"Why are you crying?" Susa asks.

"We lost eight daughter to the eight forked serpent. He devoured them. This is our last daughter." The man says.

Susa asks what the serpent looks like, and the man tells him that it has red eyes, a blood-inflamed body, eight heads, and eight forked tails. He says its back is overgrown with firs, cedars, and pines, and it cools over eight valleys and mountains.

Susa says he will say the serpent if he can have their daughter's hand in marriage, and her father obliges. The father tells Susa that he is the brother of the Sun Goddess Amaterasu, and a descendant of Yamato. Susa transforms the daughter into a comb, puts it in his hair, and goes to slay the serpent.

Susa fashioned a rampart of logs where he hung eight goodly doors, and he set up a vat filled to the brim with sake next to them. Then he waits. The serpent shows up and laps up all the liquor. This is all a part of Susa's plan, and the serpent gets tired and falls asleep.

Susa draws his sword and cuts the serpent up into 1000 pieces. When he cuts open the serpents tail he discovers a miraculous sword, the Kushanagi. He brings the sword to heaven. Then he transforms the comb back into a girl, and they marry and live happily ever after.

Susa slaying the serpent

Bibliography:
Romance of Old Japan by E. W. Champney and F. Champney (1917).