Grasscutter Prologue 2

First Published:

• Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi

Prologue 2 - Susano-o

Some sources refer to Susano-o as "The God of Storms," others as "The God of the Ocean" or as "The God of Force." He is associated with the province of Izumo on the coast of the Sea of Japan on Honshu Island. It is from there that he forested the coasts of Korea, taking hairs from his beard and turning them into trees.

He is often mischievous and, at times, downright evil.

On one rampage, he destroyed fields, filled irrigation ditches, tore out dikes, and spread excrement about the temples where the Festival of the First Fruits was being held. He then flayed a horse and threw it through the roof into the room where Amaterasu and her attendants were weaving. This so frightened the maids that they committed suicide by stabbing themselves with their shuttles. The terrified Sun Deity hid herself in a cave, blocking the entrance with a great boulder. Everything was plunged in darkness and the deities of pestilence overran the world. The Eight Hundred Deities made an eight-span mirror, strings of jewels, and cloth streamers and hung them from a sakaki tree. They had a riotous celebration outside the cave, and when the curious Amaterasu emerged to investigate the noise, she was dazzled by her reflection in the mirror. One of the kami seized her arm and drew her out of the cave, while others stretched a straw rope across the cave entrance preventing her retreat. She was then escorted to a new palace and light was restored to the world.

As punishment, the deities cut off Susano-o's mustache and beard and pulled out his fingernails and toenails. He was then expelled from Heaven.

Before he had gone too far, he met up with the Deity of Food and begged for something to eat. She offered a grand feast, but taken from her mouth, nose, and other parts of her body. Susano-o was outraged because he thought she was offering him filth and slew her. From her body was born rice, barley, millet, and bean seeds, as well as farm animals and grasses.

The scene in which Susano-o went off to look at the serpent himself was created from my own imagination, as I felt it was important the he see it with his own eyes and it made for a stronger story. In legend, Susano-o merely asks the couple the serpent's description: "His eyes are fiery and red like the winter cherry. He has but one body, with eight heads and eight tails. Moreover, on his body grows moss, together with the fir and cryptomeria of the forest. In his going, he covers eight valleys and eight hills, and upon his underside he is red and gory" [Green Willow and Other Japanese Fairy Tales, Grace James, New York: Avenel Books, 1987].

Susano-o presented the sword to Amaterasu. When she saw it, she exclaimed, "This is the sword that I lost at Takama-ga-hara ["Plain of the High Sky," a home of the heavenly deities] long ago!" [The Tale of the Heike, translated by Hiroshi Kitagawa and Bruce Tsuchida, Japan: University of Tokyo Press, 1975]. The blade became lodged in the serpent's tail and huge clouds would billow above the village, hence the name "Sword of the Village of the Clustering Clouds."

Susano-O meets a pair of Kami (Ashi-Na-Zuchi and Te-Na-Zuchi) weeping in the woods for their daughter (Kushi-Nada-Hime) who is to be devoured by an eight-headed, eight-tailed dragon. For a price, he agrees to help them, and concocts a clever trick to render the dragon helpless so it can be killed, and finds the sword Murakumo-No-Tsurugi in the dragon's fourth tail.

Last change: 19. May 2003

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Usagi Yojimbo, including all prominent characters featured in the stories and the distinctive likenesses thereof are trademarks of Stan Sakai and Usagi Studios. Usagi Yojimbo is a registered trademark of Stan Sakai. Names, characters, places, and incidents featured in this publication either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events, institutions, or locales, without satiric content, is coincidental.