“Great Deity of Miwa,” and his colleague the “Small August Deity” (Sukuna-Mi-Kami[1]), the deity Izasa-Wake, the three Water-Gods of Sumi, and the “Great Deity of Kadzuraki,” of whom there is so striking a mention in Sect. CLVIII, form, with the Sun-Goddess and with a certain divine sword preserved at the temple of Isonokami in Yamato, the only objects of worship specially named, the other gods and goddesses being no more heard of. This portion of the story is closed by an account of the troubles which inaugurated the reign of Jim-mu’s successor, Sui-sei, and then occurs a blank of (according to the accepted chronology) five hundred years, during which absolutely nothing is told us excepting dreary genealogies, the place where each sovereign dwelt and where he was buried, and the age to which he lived,—this after the minute details which had previously been given concerning the successive gods or monarchs down to Sui-sei inclusive. It should likewise be noted that the average age of the first seventeen monarchs (counting Jim-mu Ten-nō as the first according to received ideas) is nearly 96 years if we follow the “Records” and over a hundred if we follow the accepted chronology which is based chiefly on the constantly divergent statements contained in the “Chronicles.” The age of several of the monarchs exceeds 120 years.[2]
The above-mentioned lapse of an almost blank period of five centuries brings us to the reign of the Emperor known to history by the name of Sū-jin, whose life of one hundred and sixty-eight years (one hundred and twenty according to the “Chronicles”) is supposed to have immediately preceded the Christian era. In this reign the former monarch of Idzumo or god of Miwa again appears and produces a pestilence, of the manner of staying which Sū-jin is warned in a dream, while a curious but highly indecent episode tells us how a person called Oho-Tata-Ne-Ko was known to be a son of the deity in question, and was therefore appointed high priest of his temple. In the ensuing reign an elaborate legend, involving a variety of circumstances as miraculous as any in the earlier portion of the mythology, again
