Yamata no Orochi- Japanese DragonDragon"Serpent of Koshi"

The Terror of Izumo

A serpent descended each year from the land of Koshi upon the province of Izumo. It had eight heads and eight tails. Its body stretched across eight valleys and eight mountain peaks. Moss, cypress, and cryptomeria trees grew on its back, rooted in the scales of a creature so ancient it had become part of the landscape itself. Its eyes burned red as winter cherries. Its belly was perpetually bloody and raw.

The Last Daughter

An elderly couple, Ashinazuchi and Tenazuchi, had once had eight daughters. Year by year the serpent came, and year by year it took one. Now seven were gone and only the youngest remained: Kushinadahime, the Wondrous Rice Field Princess. The couple were kunitsukami, earthly deities of Izumo, yet their divine status offered no protection against the Orochi. When Susanoo, the storm god banished from the heavens for his offenses against Amaterasu, wandered down along the Hi River and came upon the family, he found them weeping over the daughter they were about to lose.

The Exile's Offer

Susanoo asked the old man what he wept for, and when Ashinazuchi told him of the serpent and its coming, Susanoo offered to slay it if the couple would give him Kushinadahime as his bride. The parents agreed. Before anything else, Susanoo transformed Kushinadahime into a comb and tucked her into his hair, keeping her close while he turned to face the monster.

Then he gave the old couple their instructions. They were to brew sake, yashio-ori no sake, eight-fold brewed rice wine refined again and again until it was overwhelmingly potent. They were to build eight platforms, each bearing a large vat, and surround them with a fence pierced by eight gates. One vat for each head. One gate for each mouth.

The Eight Vats of Sake

When Yamata no Orochi came down from Koshi, it found the sake waiting. The scent drew all eight heads forward. Each thrust through its own gate and plunged into its own vat, drinking deeply of the eight-fold brewed liquor. Head by head, the massive body slowed, the red eyes dimmed, and the creature collapsed into drunken sleep, eight heads lolling across eight platforms.

The Sword in the Tail

Susanoo drew his ten-span sword, Totsuka-no-Tsurugi, and went to work. He hacked through each neck, severed each head, and cut apart each massive coil. The Hi River ran red with the serpent's blood.

When his blade struck one of the middle tails, it hit something hard and nearly broke. Cutting more carefully, he found embedded within the flesh a sword: Ama-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi, the Sword of the Gathering Clouds of Heaven. The Nihon Shoki records that clouds had hung perpetually above the Orochi's heads, and the sword carried their name. How it came to be inside the serpent is never explained. It was simply there, waiting.

Susanoo presented the sword to Amaterasu, the sister he had so grievously offended. The blade would later be renamed Kusanagi no Tsurugi by Yamato Takeru during his eastern campaigns, and it became one of the Three Sacred Treasures that descended with Ninigi to legitimize the imperial line.

The Song of Izumo

Susanoo restored Kushinadahime to human form, married her, and built a palace at Suga in Izumo. Seeing clouds rising over the landscape, he composed what is held to be the first waka poem:

Yakumo tatsu / Izumo yaegaki / tsuma-gomi ni / yaegaki tsukuru / sono yaegaki wo

("Many clouds rise / The clouds form a manifold fence / A manifold fence of Izumo / To enfold my new bride / Oh, that manifold fence!")

The god who had wrecked Amaterasu's weaving hall and driven the sun from the sky now stood in his own palace, composing love poetry, while the land he had freed from the serpent lay quiet around him.