Deity Great-Name-Possessor.” So the eighty Deities, being enraged, and wishing to slay the Deity Great-Name-Possessor, took counsel together, on arriving at the foot of Tema[1] in the land of Hahaki, and said [to him]: “On this mountain there is a red boar. So when we drive it down, do thou wait and catch it. If thou do not wait and catch it, we will certainly slay thee.” Having [thus] spoken, they took fire, and burnt a large stone like unto a boar, and rolled it down. Then, as [they] drove it down and [he] caught it,[2] he got stuck to and burnt by the stone, and died. Thereupon Her Augustness his august parent[3] cried and lamented, and went up to Heaven, and entreated His Divine-Producing-Wondrous-Augustness,[4] who at once sent Princess Cockle-Shell[5] and Princess Clam[6] to bring him to life. Then Princess Cockle-Shell triturated and scorched[7] [her shell], and Princess Clam carried water and smeared [him] as with mother’s[8] milk, whereupon he became a beautiful young man, and wandered off. Hereupon the eighty Deities, seeing [this], again deceived him, taking him with
- ↑ Etymology unknown.
- ↑ The text is here concise to obscurity, but yet there ought not to be much doubt as to the author’s intention.
- ↑ The text has the character 祖, siginfying properly “grand-parent,” but frequently used in Archaic Japanese writings in the sense of “mother.” It is then read oya, which the English word “parent” exactly repesents.
- ↑ Kami-musu-bi-no-mikoto. See Sect. I, Note 6.
- ↑ Kami-gahi-hime. The kisa-gahi here mentioned is the modern aka-gahi, a cockle, the Arca inflata.
- ↑ Umugi-hime. The umugi here mentioned is the modern hama-guri, a clam of the family Mactridæ, the Cytherea Meretrix.
- ↑ The character used is 集, “collected,” “gathered together.” But the combined authority of Mabuchi, Motowori and Hirata obliges us either to consider it a copyist’s error for 焦, “scorched,” or else to believe that in early times in Japan the two characters were used interchangeably.
- ↑ Or “nurse’s”. The meaning is that a paste like milk was made of the triturated and calcined shell mixed with water. There is in this passage a play upon words which it is impossible to reproduce in English, the Japanese term for “triturating,” kisage (which the author has taken care to write phonetically) resembling the name of Princess Kita-gahi (Cockle-Shell), while omo, “mother” or “nurse,” similarly recalls that of Princess Umugi (Clam). Motowori traces the names of the shell-fish in question to this exploit of the two goddesses. We shall be justified in applying an inverse interpretation to the legend.
