Hoori- Japanese GodDeity"Luck of the Mountains"

Birth in Flame

Hoori's life began in fire. His father Ninigi, grandson of Amaterasu sent to rule the earthly realm, had married Konohanasakuya-hime, daughter of the mountain god Ōyamatsumi. When she became pregnant after a single night together, Ninigi accused her of infidelity with an earthly deity. Outraged, Konohanasakuya-hime sealed herself inside a doorless birthing hut and set it ablaze, declaring that if her children were truly of heavenly descent, the fire would not harm them. Three sons were born safely in the conflagration: Hoderi (Fire-Shine), Hosuseri (Fire-Climber), and Hoori (Fire-Fade). Their names follow the stages of the fire itself, and their survival proved beyond doubt that Ninigi's heavenly blood ran in their veins.

The Quarrel of the Brothers

Known as Yamasachihiko, Luck of the Mountains, Hoori was a skilled hunter who ranged the forested peaks, while his elder brother Hoderi, called Umisachihiko, Luck of the Sea, was a master fisherman. One day the brothers agreed to exchange their tools. The experiment failed entirely: neither could master the other's craft, and worse, Hoori lost Hoderi's prized fishhook in the sea. Despite offering five hundred replacement hooks forged from the blade of his own sword, Hoderi refused every substitute and demanded the return of the original.

The Sea Palace

Sitting in grief by the shore, Hoori was found by Shiotsuchi-no-Oji, the Old Man of the Tides, who fashioned a small woven boat without gaps to carry the prince to the palace of Watatsumi, the dragon king of the sea. The undersea palace was built of fish-scales and precious coral, its towers gleaming with nacre. Arriving at the gate, Hoori climbed a cassia tree beside the sacred well and waited.

Toyotama-hime, the dragon king's daughter, sent her handmaiden to draw water. The maiden saw a stranger's reflection in the well and reported a beautiful man sitting in the tree. Toyotama-hime came to see for herself and was captivated. She brought him to her father, who recognized Hoori as a heavenly descendant of Amaterasu and welcomed him with elaborate ceremony, laying out eight layers of sea-silk mats for his honored guest.

The Gifts of the Dragon King

Hoori married Toyotama-hime and lived at the sea palace for three years. But eventually he remembered the unresolved quarrel with his brother and grew melancholy, sighing with longing for the surface world.

When he explained his plight, Watatsumi summoned all the fish of the sea and discovered the lost fishhook lodged in the mouth of a sea bream. The dragon king returned the hook and gave Hoori two tide jewels: the Shiomitsutama, which raised the waters, and the Shiohirutama, which lowered them. He also taught Hoori secret incantations to curse the fishhook, and instructed him in the ritual for returning it: to present it facing backward over his left shoulder while uttering the words, "a poor hook, a foolish hook, a wretched hook."

The Subjugation of Hoderi

Returning to the surface on the back of a great wani, Hoori presented the cursed fishhook to Hoderi. As Watatsumi had foretold, the hook brought Hoderi only poor catches and mounting poverty, while Hoori prospered in everything he attempted. When Hoderi, desperate and enraged, attacked his younger brother, Hoori used the tide-raising jewel to summon the sea. The waters surged over the land and Hoderi found himself drowning, crying out in terror. He begged for mercy, and Hoori used the tide-lowering jewel to withdraw the waters. After three such humiliations, Hoderi submitted completely, vowing that he and all his descendants would serve Hoori's line forever as palace guards. The Kojiki identifies Hoderi as the ancestor of the Hayato people of southern Kyūshū, whose traditional dances before the emperor were said to reenact his drowning gestures of submission.

The Dragon Princess's Secret

Toyotama-hime followed Hoori back to the surface world when she discovered she was pregnant. As her time drew near, she built a birthing hut thatched with cormorant feathers on the seashore and begged Hoori not to watch her during labor. Beings returning to their homeland must resume their true form to give birth, she told him.

Hoori peered inside. He saw his wife in her true shape: a great wani writhing on the floor. Shamed and heartbroken that her nature had been witnessed, Toyotama-hime left their newborn son Ugayafukiaezu on the shore and returned to the sea forever, closing the boundary between land and ocean behind her.

The Nihon Shoki preserves an exchange of poems between them: Toyotama-hime sent a song from beneath the waves lamenting their parting, and Hoori replied with verses of longing, though neither could cross the boundary again. Toyotama-hime sent her younger sister Tamayori-hime to nurse the child. Tamayori-hime would eventually marry the grown Ugayafukiaezu, and their son was Emperor Jimmu, the first emperor of Japan.