Ryūgū-jō- Japanese LocationLocation · Realm"Dragon Palace"

Hoori's Arrival

Ryūgū-jō first appears in the Kojiki as the submarine palace of Watatsumi, the dragon god of the sea. When Hoori descended beneath the waves in search of his brother's lost fishhook, he arrived at a magnificent gate beside a well, shaded by a katsura tree. A handmaiden emerged and, upon learning his identity as a grandson of Amaterasu, brought him before Watatsumi. The sea god welcomed him with a feast and gave him his daughter Toyotama-hime in marriage.

Hoori lived in the palace for three years. When he finally returned to the surface, Watatsumi sent him off with the recovered fishhook and the Tide Jewels to subdue his brother, carried home on the back of a wani.

Urashima Tarō

The Tango no Kuni Fudoki and the Man'yōshū, both from the eighth century, preserve a different visitor's journey to the palace. Urashima Tarō, a fisherman who rescued a turtle, was taken to Ryūgū-jō as a reward and entertained by Otohime, the sea princess. The palace had wings for each season: perpetual cherry blossoms in one, crimson maples in another. What seemed like three days of feasting and wonder corresponded to three hundred years on the surface.

When Urashima wished to return, Otohime gave him a tamatebako, a casket, and told him never to open it. He arrived on an unrecognizable shore. Everything he knew was gone. He opened the casket. Three hundred years poured out as white smoke, and in an instant he was an old man.