Wani- Japanese CreatureCreature · Beast
Also known as: 鰐
Description
Great sea creatures of ambiguous form, shark or dragon or something stranger, that inhabit the boundary between the mortal world and the divine sea. A hare once tricked them into forming a bridge across the water. Toyotamahime revealed herself as one during childbirth.
Mythology & Lore
The Hare's Bridge
In the Kojiki's tale of the Hare of Inaba, a white hare needed to cross the sea from the island of Oki to the mainland. It challenged the wani to a contest: which species was more numerous, hares or wani? The wani lined up across the water to be counted, and the hare hopped across their backs like stepping-stones. At the last one, it boasted of the trick. The final wani seized it and stripped away its fur, leaving the hare raw and suffering on the shore.
Toyotamahime's True Form
When the god Hoori finished his sojourn at the Dragon Palace beneath the sea, a wani of one fathom's length carried him back to the shore.
Hoori's wife Toyotamahime, daughter of the sea god Watatsumi, came to land to give birth. She built a parturition hut on the beach and told Hoori not to look inside. He looked. Toyotamahime had taken the form of a great wani, crawling and writhing in her true shape. She was not wearing a disguise. The sea creature was what she had always been.
Ashamed at being seen, she abandoned the child and returned to the ocean. The passage between land and sea closed behind her.
Relationships
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