The sword Kusanagi is one of the three treasures that make up the Imperial Regalia of Japan,
symbols of the Emperor’s divinity.
Legends tell of how Susanoo, the Shinto god of storms, found the sword.
Susanoo is the brother of the Sun Goddess Amaterasu.
He is...kind of a douche, and he gets kicked out of Heaven for doing some douchey things
that we may talk about in another video.
After his banishment, Susanoo walks along a river, probably looking for some way to
be an ass, when he meets an old couple and their daughter, all crying.
Susanoo inquires about their plight.
The couple explains that they used to have eight daughters.
You know, for taxes.
Now they have one.
Every year, an eight-headed serpent comes to eat one daughter, and this year’s visit
fast approaches.
Susanoo tells the couple, “I will help you.
And in return, I ask for your daughter’s hand in marriage.”
Nice one, Susanoo, real smooth.
The couple figured being married to a powerful kami is probably better than being dead, so
they agree.
Susanoo immediately changes the daughter into a comb and sticks her to his hair.
That way, she can be part of the action too, or at least watch him do stuff.
He tells the old couple, “Old Couple, I have a plan.
Make a fence with eight gates, and behind each gate, place a large vat of sake.”
The couple does as they were told, half-thinking he must want to get drunk before dying.
After a short wait, they see eight fearsome heads appear in the distance, getting bigger.
The heads are connected to a monstrous scaled body that eventually split into eight tails.
Upon arriving, the serpent aims straight for the sake, putting each head through a gate.
The snake had eight heads, but no brains, it seems.
Which is unfortunate for the snake, living without a brain.
After its sake binge, each head falls asleep, drunk and satisfied.
Susanoo draws his sword and lops off each head, turning the nearby river red.
Just to make sure, he also starts cutting the tails.
But when he attempts to slice off one of the tails, his blade breaks.
Confused, he looks within the snake’s tail, and finds a glistening great sword.
Pleasantly surprised, he names it…
*cough* *cough* *cough*
which translates to
“The Heavenly Sword of Gathering Clouds.”
Susanoo gifts this sword to his sister, the Sun Goddess, and ends the sibling rivalry
as well as his exile from Heaven.
Later, when Amaterasu sends her grandson to pacify Japan, she gives him three things:
a mirror, and jewel, and the sword that she received from her brother.
These three treasures would later become Japan’s Imperial Regalia, and were said to be passed
down to Emperor Jimmu, the mythical first emperor.
These sacred treasures supposedly still exist today and serve as proof that the Emperor
descended from the Sun Goddess.
Legends say that during the reign of Emperor Keiko, traditionally dated as the 12th Emperor
of Japan, the Emperor sends his son, Prince Yamato Takeru, to go out and conquer a whole
bunch of places.
His aunt, a high priestess of Amaterasu, gives him the sacred sword to help him in his mission.
During his travels, a warlord lures Yamato Takeru to an open field, then sets fire to
the field, hoping to trap him.
The Prince hacks at the tall grass, attempting to hinder the fire.
A gust picks up at each swing.
He realizes that the sword allows him to control the wind.
Thinking fast, he lights up more grass with a flint and grows the fire.
A few flourishes of the blade blow the fire back toward his enemies, defeating them.
After this incident, Prince Yamato Takeru renames the sword that saved him to
Kusanagi no Tsurugi, The Grass-Cutting Sword.
We move on from myths and legends to the year 1185.
The story goes...during the Genpei War, Emperor Antoku’s supporters lose a critical naval
battle.
The Emperor is 6 years old, and is on the run, taking with him the Imperial Regalia.
Rather than let him get captured, the Emperor’s grandmother forces him and his servants to
jump into the waters and orders the imperial treasures tossed overboard.
Grandmother and Emperor perish under the depths, but the mirror was saved before a servant
could get rid of it.
The jewel did sink beneath the waves, but was later recovered.
As for the sword, it either falls in and is never found, or is found washed ashore, depending
on which version of the story you believe.
Honestly, the latter seems unlikely because metal swords sink, they don’t float to shore.
Whatever the real story is, in the present day, Kusanagi is allegedly kept within the
Atsuta Shrine, a shrine traditionally believed to have been created for the purpose of housing
the sword.
The last person who claimed to have seen the sword was a Shinto priest during the Edo Period.
Unfortunately, he forgot to take a photo, so we only have his word to go on.
Nowadays, during the coronation of a new emperor, two of the three treasures are presented to
the new emperor: the sword and the jewel, wrapped and boxed.
Some people mistake this sword for the original, but the sword presented to the Emperor is
only a replica, a symbol of the real sword.
Again, the real one allegedly stays within the Atsuta Shrine.
So does the Kusanagi still exist?
Did it ever exist or was it always a legend?
We really don’t know.
We only have stories and unreliable historical records.
And honestly, not many Japanese people care to investigate.
It’s a cool story, a sword that survived thousands of years.
The kind of story you want to be true.