Susano-O and the Serpent
Susano-O, the Japanese Shinto god of the storms, was always whipping up trouble wherever he went. Exiled from the heavens, he was on his way to his mother, Izanami-no-mikoto, in the netherworld. After being thrown out of his sister Amaterasu’s abode Tagamakahara, he lands on earth in Nakatsukuni—Japan. Let’s join him on his new adventure.
Susano-O had landed in Izumo where the river Hii flowed. Walking aimlessly down the banks of the river, he spotted a pair of chopsticks floating along. The sight of the chopsticks made Susano-O’s stomach growl with hunger. This means somebody lives up this river. I’ll follow it upstream and maybe get a bite to eat, thought he.
When he reached the source, he found an old couple weeping inconsolably along with a beautiful girl who turned out to be their daughter. ‘Who are you and why do you all cry this way?’ asked Susano-O.
The old man, who was surprised to see him, said, ‘I’m Ashinazuchi and she is my wife Tenazuchi. And this girl is our dear daughter Kushinadahime.’
‘We used to have eight daughters and Kushinada is the youngest of them. Every year, the serpent Yamata-no-Orochi comes here and takes away our daughters one by one. This year, he is coming to take our youngest . . .’ and he began to cry loudly again.
‘Stop crying now! Tell me, who is the Yamata-no-Orochi whom you fear so much? Maybe I can deal with him,’ offered Susano-O.
‘No, no, no! You are no match for him! He is an eight-headed, a monstrous serpent. He has eight heads and eight tails and he is so huge that moss grows on his back, which is filled with cedars and cypresses. His entire length holds eight mountains and eight valleys. His stomach is bloated, festering and bloody! His eyes are like winter cherries . . .’
‘Enough! I get the general picture!’ Susano-O gestured to him to stop. ‘Look here, Ashinazuchi-san, I’ll get rid of this evil serpent for you. But will you promise your daughter in marriage to me if I do so?’ Kushinada was slender and beautiful and Susano-O thought that she would make him a sweet wife.
‘I’m Susano-O, brother of Amaterasu, the goddess of the heavens,’ he introduced himself and the old couple were very impressed (a god no less), and were only too glad to agree. Of course, they were blissfully unaware of his antics in the heavens. To them he seemed such a brave young man and handsome too.
Let’s not forget that Susano-O was a god and he quickly changed Kushinada into a comb and put her in his mizura, his bun. He then gave instructions to her parents. ‘I want you to brew some sake, lots of it.’ Sake is the white rice wine that the Japanese love. ‘Refine it eight times over for we need it to be very, very strong. We need eight big sake fune (wooden barrels). Put up a long fence around your home and build eight gates. In front of each of those gates, build a platform and place a sake fune there, eight in all. After it’s done, go hide! I’ll take care of the rest.’
So Ashinasuchi and his wife did as instructed. And eight sake fune were placed at each of the eight gates they built. Hiding themselves, they waited. Before long, the monstrous serpent Yamata-na-Orochi, sniffing the heady scent of the sake, came slithering down. Now, all serpents love wine and Yamata was no exception.
He went around the eight gates and put his eight heads into each of the eight sake fune and drank deeply from them all. Soon he had finished all of the sake and was now very drowsy and weak. It was not before too long that he completely passed out, good as dead!
At this point, Susano-O emerged from his hiding place and with his sword, Totsuka-no-Tsurugi (the Sword of Length Ten Times its Handle), cut up the great big serpent into pieces—heads, tails and all. Soon, the river Hii was awash with Yamata-na-Orochi’s blood making it a deep red.
As he was cutting up one of the tails, his sword came across something hard. He tore open the tail and found lodged inside an exquisite sword! Sharp and beautiful, it was something very special indeed.
Later on, Susano-O gifted that sword to his sister Amaterasu as a peace offering to settle their quarrel. The sword, known as Ama-no-Murakumono-Tsurugi (Sword of the Gathering Clouds of Heaven), later became one of the imperial treasures of Japan.
Susano-O married the beautiful Kushinada and decided to live happily ever after in the land of Izumo. But for that he sought a suitable place to build his palace and he found it in Suga. What a beautiful and refreshing place this is, he thought when he located the spot and broke into the first Haiku poem that Japan saw. It went like this:
Izumo yaegaki
Tsuma-gomi ni
Yaegaki tsukuru
Sono yaegaki wo.
Translated it reads:
Izumo is a land protected by clouds aplenty
And like this land of Izumo
I shall build a fence to protect the palace
Where my wife will live
Like the clouds in this land of Izumo.
Susano-O made his father-in-law Ashinazuchi the caretaker of his palace and lived there happily (ever after!) with his bride Kushinada-hime. Even today, the Sugo shrine stands where Susano-O had recited this first Haiku. And do you want to know what ‘Sugo’ means? ‘Refreshing’—as Susano-O found the place to be!
