Meeting: #5 Subject: The Festival of the Dead Date: 7-14-97
Susanoo listened to this sad tale and perceiving that the girl was very beautiful, he offered to slay the eight-headed serpent if her parents would give her to him in marriage. The request was readily granted.
Susanoo changed the princess into a many tooth comb and stuck it in his hair. Then he bade the couple to brew eight barrels of sake. He set out the eight barrels and waited for the serpent to arrived.
Eventually the serpent came. It had eight heads, and the eyes were red, and it had eight tails. It was the length of eight hills and eight valleys. When it came upon the sake, the oroichi dipped his heads and drank it all up. The oroichi then became drunk and fell asleep. Susanoo, having little to fear, took his sword and proceeded to chop the serpent into little pieces. Unfortunately, the oroichi woke up and a bloody battle ensued. Susanoo, with utmost confidence, slew the oroichi. He then chopped it up into little pieces. While chopping one of the serpent's tails, Susanoo's blade hit something. A piece of Susanoo's blade broke off and hit his head. But luckily, it hit one of the ornaments he wore in his hair and so he remained unharmed. The sword Susanoo discovered was called Murakumo-no-Tsurugi. Perceiving it a divine sword, he sent it up to the heavens.
Then Susanoo took the many tooth comb and turned it back to the Princess Kushinada. When Princess Kushinada took her human form, she promptly collapsed onto the ground, her body in two, for the broken blade had hit the comb which she was. Susanoo and the old couple mourned over their loss. Although the oroichi failed to devour the princess, she died anyway.
But what really happened was that Susanoo killed the drunken serpent without any hassle. Found the divine sword, sent it up to the heavens, and married the princess. They lived happily ever after.
The Taira Ghost. There is a curious tale of a man who, 600 years after a Taira warrior, Shigehara, had been executed at the hands of Yoritomo in Kamakura, was guided by a phantom servant girl to a lonely house in the woods. There he was introduced and even formally wedded to a beautiful girl, who he was told was Shigehara's daughter. Ito realized he was surrounded by apparitions, but their presence was very real to him and he did not find it disturbing. Indeed, during the one night he spent in the ghostly mansion, he became greatly attracted by the charms of his new and phantom wife and their marriage was consummated. Before they parted the following morning she told him they would meet again in ten years' time, and that all the Taira clan would rejoice to see him as her bride-groom. For ten years Ito told no one of his experience and during that period he became ill and feeble.
When the time came for their reunion, to which for all his frailty Ito looked forward with eagerness, the ghostly servant girl who had first guided him to the house of Shigehara's daughter appeared to Ito and said his wife was about to summon him. By then he was a very sick man. He told his mother the story for the first time, showing her a gift his bride had given him a decade before, and then he died.
At that moment all the Taira spirits of the dead returned to life to take revenge on all who had caused them suffering in life. It was a massacre with lots of blood and guts being splattetered everywhere!! Among them was Ito, who could not allow his mother to live after the secret he revealed to her. He took off her head in one swipe of his ghostly Masamune, and it rolled to his new bride's feet. The bride laughed insanely like this: MWA HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
That's not really what happened, even though it would be more interesting that way. After Ito died, it is believed that he did see his wife again, and all the Taira clan did rejoice -- in the realm of the dead.
The "Grass-Cleaving Sword." Prince Yamato once went forth to quell a rebellion. Before the prince left, he visited his aunt, who was a priestess at a sacred temple. She gave him a sword and a bag containing flints, the sword being Murakumo-no-Tsurugi.
After a long march, the prince and his followers arrived at Suruga. The governor was very hospitable. And by way of entertainment, organized a deer hunt. The prince decided to participate in the hunt.
The prince was led to a great and wild place. While he was engaged in hunting deer, he was suddenly aware there was a fire. In another moment he saw flames and clouds of smoke shooting up in every direction. He was surrounded by fire from which there was no escape. Too late he realized he had fallen into a trap. He died a fiery death, writhing and screaming in agony. When the fire died down, his deceivers came to find the body, whereupon his sword suddenly rose and with great swiftness cut the feet off his deceivers. Then the flints rose and rapped against each other and thus started the fire anew. The governor and his accomplice also died a fiery death. And so the prince's vengeance was wrought.
But what really happened was that the prince, upon realizing that he had been tricked, quickly took the flints and set fire to the tall grass near him. He then took his sword and quickly cut down the tall grass, whereupon the winds changed direction and blew the flames away form him. So that the prince made good his escape without a single burn. And thus it was that the sword of Murakumo became known as Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi, or the "Glass-Cleaving Sword."
Yuki-Onna. She is the Lady of the Snow, and represents death as a sharp contrast to the general beauty of the snow in Japan. One night Mosaku and his apprentice Minokichi were forced to take shelter in a small hut. In the middle of the night, Minokichi woke to find Yuki-Onna bent over his master, "breath coming forth like white smoke." Then she turned to Minokichi, and hovering over him, told him that were it not for his youth and beauty she would do the same to him. The Lady of the Snow told Minokichi that if he dared ever repeat what he had seen, she would kill him. With Yuki-Onna gone, Minokichi reached over to touch Mosaku's hand, which was like ice. Mosaku was dead.
During the next winter, Minokichi met a young woman by the name of Yuki, and eventually married her. She gave him ten children, with skin of unusual fairness. One night, Yuki was sewing by the light of a paper lamp, and Minokichi said to her, "Yuki, you remind me so much of a beautiful white woman I saw when I was eighteen years old. She killed my master with her ice-cold breath. I am sure she was some strange spirit, and yet to-night she seems to resemble you!" (Note for boys: girls take great offense at being compared to supernatural women that killed your masters.)
With a horrible smile, she shrieked: "It is I, Yuki-Onna, who came to you then, and silently killed your master! Oh, faithless wretch, you have broken your promise to keep the matter secret, and if it were not for our sleeping children I would kill you now! Remember, if they have aught to complain of at your hands I shall hear, I shall know, and on a night when the snow falls I will kill you!" With this, she became a white mist and crept away. She never did return.