Hey! Welcome to another day of Hotsui Matsuri! I wanted to write a little piece about these mystical objects in Japanese folklore since they are sprinkled in a lot of anime and japanese media.
Many of my favorites come from classic tales like The Tale of the bamboo-cutter, where a bamboo-cutter and his wife raise a tiny child he finds in a bamboo shoot who turns out to be the missing Moon Princess. Then when suitors came to woo the Princess, Kaguya-hime made near-impossible tasks to retrieve these items in an effort to return home to the Moon Palace. The tale goes “agreeing to marry the noble who can bring her the item specified for him: the stone begging bowl of the Buddha, a jeweled branch from the mythical island of Hōrai, a robe of Chinese fire-rat skins, a colored jewel from a dragon‘s neck, and a cowry shell born from a swallow.” In the second feature movie, Inuyasha- The castle beyond the looking glass shows
The other half of the Emperor’s story follows a particular part of the conglomerate of auditory stories transcribed called, The Tale of the Heike. At the end of the Heike clan in the last battle where the kid emperor dies in a shipwreck off the shore of Ise a stolen legendary sword vanished. That sword the former, Ame-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi (天叢雲剣, “Heavenly Sword of Gathering Clouds”) later named Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi (“Grass-Cutting Sword”) was one of three legendary weapons none as the Imperial Regalia, weapons made from godly power. There is also a bronze mirror (Yata no Kagami) and a jewel (Yasakani no Magatama) which is few of many ancient beads that have since been lost throughout the years. Each item represents a virtue the sword “valor”, the mirror “wisdom” and the jewel “benevolence”.
It’s rumored that these three legendary items actually do exist and has been kept out of the public’s view for hundreds of years. For safe keeping, “Ise Grand Shrine in Mie Prefecture holds the mirror, Atsuta Shrine in Nagoya holds the sword (or its replica), and Three Palace Sanctuaries in Tokyo holds the jewel.”
Anyways that’s enough for now! I love when folklore meets history and I am no expert in the subjects but I do love the connects you can find in the media of today. See you in the next post!
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