him in the Even Pass of Yomi where he had blocked the passage with a great rock. Izanagi, instead of being content with a curtain lecture or with a gracious apology for his unseemly conduct, solemnly declared a divorce! On hearing this, Izanami adopted a militant attitude by saying: "My lord and husband, if thou sayest so, I will strangle to death the people in one day." This threat did not cause her lord to yield. He observed that her act of slaughter would be futile, seeing that he had the power to create in one day no less than fifteen hundred men and women. It was unfortunate that deities who had married each other after seeing the mating of wagtails should have ended their wedded life with such bickerings, but even the Olympian deities were subject occasionally to bad temper and anything but friendly conjugal relations.

Izanagi left the Land of Yomi and underwent a very elaborate purification in a small stream in the island of Tsukushi in order to cleanse himself from the pollution he had incurred with the dead, which, as Brinkley observes, "inaugurates the rite of purification practised to this day in Japan". Before entering the water, Izanagi removed his garments, his necklace and his bracelets. Kami were born from these articles and also from the pollution which was washed away during this great lustration. From his left eye was born Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess, from his right eye, Tsuki-yumi, the Moon God, and from his nose Susa-no-o, the Impetuous Male. We read in the Nihongi: "After this, Izanagi, his divine task having been accomplished, and his spirit-career about to suffer a change, built himself an abode of gloom in the island of Ahaji, where he dwelt for ever in silence and concealment."

The moon figures so frequently in Japanese poetry and is always described with such intense delight that it is surprising to find that the Moon God is only referred to in one Japanese myth, and then in a manner in no way compatible with a poet's reference. On one occasion Ama-terasu sent the Moon God to wait upon Uke-mochi, the Goddess of Food, who dwelt in the Central Land of Reed-Plains. When the Moon God saw her, he noticed that when she turned towards the land, boiled rice issued from her mouth. When she looked at the sea, all manner of fish, "broad of fin and things narrow of fin," gushed from her mouth, and when she gazed at the mountains, "there came from her mouth things rough of hair and things soft of hair". When she had brought forth these things, she set the food upon a hundred tables and invited the Moon God to the feast. But the Moon God refused to eat, saying: "Filthy! Nasty! That thou shouldst dare to feed me with things disgorged from thy mouth!" He then slew the Goddess of Food and returned to Heaven. When he gave the Sun Goddess an account of his doings, she became extremely angry, and said: "Thou art a wicked deity. I must not see thee face to face." And so it came to pass that the Sun Goddess and the Moon God were separated by a day and a night. The Sun Goddess, distressed by the news brought her by the Moon God, sent another messenger, who found that although the Goddess of Food was dead, she bore upon her head an ox and a horse, millet on her forehead, silkworms over her eyebrows, panic in her eyes, rice in her stomach, and elsewhere wheat and two kinds of bean. When the messenger returned to Heaven and made his report,

Ama-terasu said: "These are the things by which the race of visible men will eat and live." She planted the millet, wheat and beans in dry fields and sowed the rice in fields covered with water. We read in the Nihongi: "That autumn, drooping ears bent down, eight span long, and were exceedingly pleasant to look on."

If the Sun Goddess was unfortunate in having for a brother the Moon God, she was still more unfortunate in her other brother, Susa-no-0. He was wayward and impetuous, bad-tempered and spiteful. His long beard gave him a patriarchal appearance, and at first sight suggested wisdom and benignity. But unfortunately his appearance was deceptive, for whenever he could not get his own way he wept profusely. He was, in short, the one Japanese deity who may be said to have run amok both in the Plain of High Heaven, where the Tranquil River flowed, as well as during his wanderings on earth. When Susa-no-o was angry he destroyed mountains and forests and slew many people, instead of ruling over the sea according to the decree of his father.

Izanagi, hearing of Susa-no-o's unseemly weeping and his still more unseemly destruction of life, desired to banish him to the Land of Yomi with "a divine expulsion". Susa-no-o, who knew how to wheedle very effectively, said to his father: "I will now obey thy instructions and proceed to the Nether-Land (Yomi). Therefore I wish for a short time to go to the Plain of High Heaven and meet my elder sister, after which I will go away for ever." Izanagi fancied he saw in this speech the promise of better things and no little filial piety. He accordingly granted the petition,

and the Impetuous Male ascended to Heaven while the sea roared and the mountains groaned aloud.

When the Sun Goddess heard that Susa-no-o was about to enter Heaven, she was filled with grave misgiving, and said to herself: "Is my younger brother coming with good intentions? I think it must be his purpose to rob me of my kingdom. By the charge which our parents gave to their children, each of us has his own allotted limits. Why, therefore, does he reject the kingdom to which he should proceed, and make bold to come spying here?"

Having murmured these words, she prepared to defend herself. We read: "She bound up her hair into knots, and tied up her skirts into the form of trousers. Then she took an august string of five hundred Yasaka jewels, which she entwined round her hair and wrists. Moreover, on her back she slung a thousand-arrow quiver and a five-hundred-arrow quiver. On her lower arm she drew a dread, loud-sounding elbow-pad. Brandishing her bow end upwards, she firmly grasped her sword-hilt, and stamping on the hard earth of the courtyard, sank her thighs into it as if it had been foam-snow, and kicked it in all directions. Having thus put forth her dread manly vigour, she uttered a mighty cry of defiance, and questioned him in a straightforward manner."

At this point Japanese myth strikes a deliciously humorous note, though the humour is probably unintended. The Impetuous Male, as he stood on the bank of the Tranquil River of Heaven, affected to be much surprised and not a little grieved when he saw the warlike preparations of his sister. Sometimes the Impetuous Male could control his petulance, and he did

so on this occasion. With knowledge of the histrionic art worthy of a better cause, he concealed his evil motives by adopting the air of one grievously wronged. When he looked across the River of Heaven and saw his sister in all her "dread manly vigour," he said with great pathos: "From the beginning my heart has not been black. But as, in obedience to the stern behest of our parents, I am about to depart for ever to the Nether-land, how could I bear to go without having seen face to face thee my elder sister? It is for this reason that I have traversed on foot the clouds and mists and have come hither from afar. I am surprised that my elder sister should, on the contrary, put on so stern a countenance."

mist," the "Kami of the "Kami of the cascade". Yasaka jewels which his

Ama-terasu was not wholly convinced of her brother's good intentions, and she resolved to test his sincerity. She accordingly took her brother's ten-span sword, broke it into three pieces, and rinsed them in "the true-well of Heaven". She then crushed the fragments in her mouth, and in blowing them away they were converted into three female deities known as the "Kami of the torrent beautiful island," and the Susa-no-o then took the sister had worn in her hair and round her wrists, and, having also rinsed them in "the true-well of Heaven," crushed them in his mouth and blew out the fragments, which were immediately changed into five male deities. Now the condition of this deity-producing competition was that if Susa-no-o created female Kami, his motive in visiting his sister was evil. If, on the other hand, he produced male deities, his motive was good. It will be seen, therefore, that by the condition imposed the