is called by the name of Hand-Stroking-Elder, and my daughter is called by the name of Wondrous-Inada-Princess.”[1] Again he asked: “What is the cause of your crying?” [The old man] answered, saying: “I had originally eight young girls as daughters. But the eight-forked serpent of Koshi[2] has came every year and devoured [one], and it is now its time to come, wherefore we weep.” Then he asked him: “What is its form like?” [The old man] answered, saying: "Its eyes are like akakagachi,[3] it has one body with eight heads and eight tails. Moreover on its body grows moss, and also chamæcyparis[4] and cryptomerias. Its length extends over eight valleys and eight hills, and if one look at its belly, it is all constantly bloody
- ↑ Kushi-[I]nada-hime, Inada (i.e. ina-da, “rice-field”) being the name of a place. Kushi signifies not only “wondrous” but “comb,” and is indeed here written with the character for “comb” 櫛, so that there is a play on the word in connection with the incident of her transformation into a comb which is mentioned immediately below, though most authorities agree in considering 櫛 to be here used phonetically for 奇, which is the reading in the “Chronicles.” Moribe, however, in his “Idzu no Chi-waki” suggests the etymology Kushi-itadaki-hime (櫛項姫) i.e., “Princess [used as] a comb [for] the head.”
- ↑ Derivation quite obscure. Motowori quotes an absurd etymology given in the “Japanese Words Classified and Explained,” which identifies the name of Koshi with the Past Tense of the Verb kuru, “to come”! There is a district (kohori) named Koshi in the modern province of Echigo; but Koshi was down to historical times a somewhat vague designation of all the north-western provinces,—Echizeū, Kaga, Noto, Etchiu, and Echigo. A tradition preserved in the “Chronicles” tells us that it was meant to denote the Island of Yezo (or rather, perhaps, the land of the Yezo, i.e. the Ainos). The expression in the first Song in Sect. XXIV, and other similar ones in the early literature show that it was not looked upon as a part of Japan proper.
- ↑ See Note 13.
- ↑ A coniferous tree, the Chamæcyparis obtusa, in Japanese hi-no-ki. The cryptomeria is Cryptomeria japonica.
“Chronicles” gives Ashi-nadzu-te-nadzu (足摩手摩) as the name of the old father alone, while the mother is called Inada-no-miya-nushi Susa-no-ya-tsu-mimi. (Inada-no-miya-nushi signifies “Mistress of the Temple of Inada; the signification of the second compound, which forms the name properly so called is not clear, but should probably be interpreted to mean “Impetuous-Eight-Ears,” the word susa, “impetuous,” containing an allusion to the name of her divine visitor, and “eight ears” being Honorific.)
