A few hours into his quest, he found a group of three people, trembling as if fearing for their lives. It appeared as if though an old man and woman were holding their child, a fair young women.
Susa-no-wo was shocked to have actually found people, for he had never before, and asked them who they were.
The man responded, "Great Augustness, I am a deity of the earth, Ashinadzuchi, son of the Mountain God and this is my wife, Tenadzuchi. We worry for our daughter, Kushinada-hime."
To which the great Susa-no-wo responded, "Why do you fear, for you are a strong man and there is no one near?"
Ashinadzuchi explained the predicament they were in and responded with "She is the last of eight daughters, and every year, the terrible eight-forked serpent of Koshi comes and devours one of our children. We fear that the time the monster comes again is nigh."
Feeling sad for the man and his family, Susa-no-wo asked what kind of beast this was, to size it up against his great strength.
It was said that the beast with eight forked tails, who extended over eight mountains, and who was covered in trees so that all you could see were its blood-red eyes staring you down.
Susa-no-wo was not afraid, and for the maiden was very fair indeed, he asked for her hand in marriage in exchange for quelling the beast. Her parents rejoiced, and promised it should he succeed. Susa-no-wo promptly turned the maiden into a hair comb, and pushed her into his hair for safe-keeping.
When the beast finally came, it was much bigger than Susa-no-wo had anticipated. However, it was no match for Susa-no-wo's superior intellect. He decided to have the man's wife brew a strong batch of sake, which was placed into great barrels to await the serpent. The serpent was delighted at the site of the sake, and drank it all up very quickly.
In his drunken stupor, the beast was not quick enough to evade Susa-no-wo, who chopped it up into many pieces. Within the tail, he discovered a great sword, which he delivered to the gods. When it was all done, he removed the comb from his hair, and wed the beautiful maiden who he had just saved.
Author's Note: I found this story to be very interesting, although difficult to understand. My goal for this story was to retell it in a way that would be easy to read. I thought the story was especially interesting in the way he got around the brute strength of the beast.
Bibliography. Romance of Old Japan, Part I: Mythology and Legend by E. W. Champney and F. Champney (1917).
Hey Rohan! I love your version of this story. The original is so difficult to understand and I really appreciate anything that makes a good story simpler to comprehend. You did keep the basic writing style of it (for example, "for the maiden was very fair indeed"), which I thought was really cool. I also love how you emphasized details that the original story did not pay attention to. It really enhanced the visuals! Great job here!
ReplyDeleteHi Rohan! I really appreciated how you retold the story! You made the plot extremely easy to follow, on top of keeping me intrigued throughout with twists and turns in the story. I really admired how the character, Susa-no-wo, was not afraid of the serpent and, instead, was extremely clever in how he defeated the beast. I also liked that he used his knowledge as a weapon, rather than trying to overcome the serpent with only physical strength. I was wondering why Susa-no-wo turned the maiden he sought to marry into a hair comb and what the significance of this particular object was in the story. Was that a customary thing to do, or was it just what he did in order to protect her? I am a little confused on why he offered the chopped up serpent to the gods. I think a little more background detail about this particular part would connect this to the story even more. Great job! I hope this helps!
ReplyDeleteHello Rohan!
ReplyDeleteThat is such a clever idea to retell the story in your own words so that you can understand it better. I agree that this story was a bit confusing the first time reading through it, so my notes on it are not very cohesive, but your retelling definitely helped me follow along with the main points of the original story. One part of this story that I have a hard time visualizing is the eight-forked serpent itself, since it is described as being the size of eight mountains with trees on its back and eight large tails split in two. It makes me wonder how the people can't see the monster if it is so large! Overall, I enjoyed your retelling and appreciate that it helped me understand the story as well.