1 — A God in Free-Fall
Cast out of Heaven for vandalising the sun-goddess’s realm, Susanoo-no-Mikoto plummets along the Milky River, storms raging in his wake. Beard shorn, nails torn, divine weapons confiscated, he is all raw nerve and thunder. As his bare feet strike the reed-plain of Izumo (modern Shimane), the sky clears for the first time in days. Susanoo inhales the scent of earth—new to a deity born in the nasal breath of his father—and vows to prove his worth in this mortal province.
Following the river Hi that snakes toward the Sea of Japan, he arrives at a weeping scene: an aged couple clasping their last remaining daughter. The parents are the earthly deities Ashinazuchi and Tenazuchi; the girl’s name is Kushinada-hime, “Rice-field Wondrous Princess,” her beauty as fragile as unharvested grain. Seven elder sisters, the parents say, have already been devoured by a monster. Tonight—the eighth year—the creature comes again.
2 — The Serpent Named Orochi
The parents describe their tormentor: a dragon so vast its belly drags furrows through the fields, its back bristles with cedar and cypress, and eight heads sway like burning watch-towers. Flame and venom drip from each maw; its eyes glow scarlet; moss carpets its spine. It is called Yamata-no-Orochi—“Eight-Forked Serpent.” Each head demands a maiden; each year a daughter is sacrificed; each year the river runs red.
Susanoo listens, then asks only two things: first, a bowl of water to rinse his mouth—symbolic cleansing after exile; second, the hand of Kushinada-hime if he succeeds. The parents agree, desperate for any salvation.
3 — Strategy over Strength
Susanoo could charge the serpent outright—he is, after all, storm incarnate—but brute force alone might doom the girl and the land alike. Instead he devises a ruse of rice-wine and patience. Calling for eight great vats, he orders them brewed with the richest sake Izumo can muster: triple-polished rice, river water, kōji mould. The vats are then placed behind a newly built palisade, each at the mouth of a gate, facing a different compass point. In front of these gates Susanoo transforms Kushinada-hime into a comb—tucking her safe in his hair. On the eve of the dragon’s arrival, the wine’s fragrance drifts like warm bread across the valley.
Night deepens. Orochi slithers from mountain shadow, eight necks undulating. Each head noses a gate, finds a vat, and plunges in. The monster drinks greedily; sake streams down its triple-rowed throats. Soon the serpent staggers—its eight bellies drum like boiling kettles; eyelids droop; tongues loll. Susanoo steps from hiding, now bearing a borrowed Totsuka-no-tsurugi (ten-grip sabre).
4 — The Slaying
First he cleaves the tail nearest him; hot blood fountains into the night grass. He whirls, striking neck after neck. Thunder cracks, echoing his blows. One head rears, hissing, but collapses under its own intoxicated weight. By dawn only twitching coils remain, severed yet still undulating like wind-blown ropes.
Reaching the largest tail, Susanoo’s sword jars against something unyielding. Splitting the flesh wider, he draws forth an immaculate blade, untouched by corrosion, gleaming with a pale green lustre. He names it Ame-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi—“Sword of the Gathering Clouds of Heaven.” (Centuries later, this weapon will be presented to Amaterasu’s grandson Ninigi and rechristened Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi, the Grass-Mower, one of Japan’s Three Sacred Treasures.)
Orochi’s blood merges with river water, turning it a coppery red. In Izumo dialect to this day, a certain stretch of the Hi River is called Hii-kawa—“Scarlet River”—its name a fossil of myth.
5 — Restoration and Marriage
Susanoo rinses the comb; Kushinada-hime steps forth human once more, whole and unscarred. The storm-god builds a palace of cypress and thatch at Suga, declaring: “Here my heart finds peace.” He composes Japan’s earliest recorded waka poem:
Many clouds rise
to make a lofty fence—
that fence too shelters
our bridal house; O eightfold clouds,
rise and enclose us well.
This verse, 31 syllables of gratitude and possession, is preserved in the Kojiki as the first instance of love poetry—born from dragon blood and the hush of dawn.
Ashinazuchi and Tenazuchi present Susanoo with provincial authority. Together, storm-god and rice-bride oversee new embankments; rice paddies flourish unmolested. Izumo’s people remember him not as the vandal of Heaven but as their dragon-slayer, ancestor, and patron of swordsmiths.
6 — Themes and Under-currents
Redemption through Service
Exiled for chaos, Susanoo earns restoration by protecting the vulnerable. His journey arcs from destructive adolescent to culture-hero, echoing the Japanese proverb: “The nail that sticks up is hammered down—then used as a pillar.”
Intoxication as Liminal Tool
Sake is more than drink; it is ritual solvent, softening the barrier between brute nature and divine order. Festivals today still offer rice-wine to guardian snakes or dragons carved at shrine fountains, thanking them for withheld floods.
Marriage as Pacification
Kushinada-hime personifies rice; her union with storm-god symbolises weather’s submission to agriculture. The myth suggests that humanised alliances—not just martial exploits—tame nature’s violence.
Treasure from the Monster’s Belly
Kusanagi’s birth inside a corpse mirrors many mythic swords worldwide (e.g., Sigurd’s Gram in Volsunga saga). In Japanese ethos the blade embodies the idea that civilisation’s sharpest tools often arise from confronting darkness.
7 — Cultural, Historical, Modern Resonance
Regalia and Sovereignty
The sword Kusanagi completes the triad with Amaterasu’s mirror and magatama. Each new emperor receives them symbolically, legitimising rule as steward of both Heaven’s light and Earth’s tempest.
Shrine Geography
Izumo’s Yaegaki Jinja venerates Susanoo and Kushinada; wedding couples still pray there for harmonious marriage. Nearby, sake breweries label special batches “Orochi-slayer,” invoking the myth every autumn when new rice is steamed.
Performing Arts
Kabuki play “Nihon Furisode Hajime” stages Orochi with titanic papier-mâché heads spouting real fire. In kagura performances across Shimane, serpent-dancers wear iron-mesh masks to resist sparks from hand-held fireworks—technology born of storytelling.
Popular Media
Video games like Ōkami and series like Naruto reimagine the sword Kusanagi and Susanoo armour; craft breweries export “Yamata-no-Orochi” sake abroad. The myth remains an economic as well as artistic engine.
8 — Philosophical Echoes
Shintō scholars read Susanoo’s arc as proof that mitama (spirit) has rough and gentle aspects—ara-mitama (wild) and nigi-mitama (peaceful). The same deity can rage and then nurture; harmony lies in balancing, not eliminating, either facet.
Environmental ethicists note the dragon’s eight heads as rivers’ eight tributaries; the tale becomes an allegory of flood control—sober stewardship of water. Killing Orochi symbolises diking and irrigation, sake representing the agricultural surplus enabling such works.
9 — Coda: Cloud-Gatherer to Sword-Bearer
From one severed tail came a blade that would one day slice grass, part seas of enemy warriors, and sit, wrapped in brocade, beside a modern throne. From storm and grief came husbandry and poetry. Susanoo’s Izumo chapter shows that Japanese myth does not discard its rebels; it retrains them, forging tempest into tool.
The stage is now set for the Descent of the Heavenly Grandson—Amaterasu’s lineage bridging Heaven and Earth, carrying Kusanagi in readiness. That story of mandate, rice ears, and the founding of the imperial line forms the substance of Paper 5.
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