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71-461: Emperor Jimmu ( 神武天皇 , Jinmu-tennō ) was the legendary first emperor of Japan according to the Nihon Shoki and Kojiki . His ascension is traditionally dated as 660 BC. In Japanese mythology , he was a descendant of the sun goddess Amaterasu , through her grandson Ninigi , as well as a descendant of the storm god Susanoo . He launched a military expedition from Hyūga near

142-456: A content-based series of categories on the line of the Aarne–Thompson folktale index, provoked a search for a broader new synthesis. In an early attempt at defining some basic questions operative in examining folk tales, Friedrich Ranke  [ de ] in 1925 characterised the folk legend as "a popular narrative with an objectively untrue imaginary content", a dismissive position that

213-598: A copy of the Kan'ei printed edition in 1754. After meeting Mabuchi in 1763, Norinaga began to devote his efforts to an in-depth scholarly study of the text. A monumental 44-volume study of the Kojiki called Kojiki-den ( 古事記伝 , "Commentary on the Kojiki ") , composed over a 34-year period (1764–1798), was the fruit of his labor. With Norinaga, the Kojiki assumed an importance equal to the Nihon Shoki ; in fact, in his view

284-421: A legend is simply a longstanding rumour . Gordon Allport credited the staying-power of some rumours to the persistent cultural state-of-mind that they embody and capsulise; thus " Urban legends " are a feature of rumour. When Willian Hugh Jansen suggested that legends that disappear quickly were "short-term legends" and the persistent ones be termed "long-term legends", the distinction between legend and rumour

355-499: A modern genre of folklore that is rooted in local popular culture , usually comprising fictional stories that are often presented as true, with macabre or humorous elements. These legends can be used for entertainment purposes, as well as semi-serious explanations for seemingly-mysterious events, such as disappearances and strange objects. The term "urban legend," as generally used by folklorists, has appeared in print since at least 1968. Jan Harold Brunvand , professor of English at

426-470: A more narrative-based or mythological form over time, an example being the oral traditions of the African Great Lakes . Hippolyte Delehaye distinguished legend from myth : "The legend , on the other hand, has, of necessity, some historical or topographical connection. It refers imaginary events to some real personage, or it localizes romantic stories in some definite spot." From

497-565: A national epic like Beowulf is in the English-speaking world. During the 1920s and 30s, linguist Hashimoto Shinkichi studied the phonology of the Old Japanese language , and his conclusions were applied by scholars to the study of the text. The Kojiki continued to attract the attention of academics and other specialists in the post-war period, which saw the appearance of numerous editions, translations and commentaries on

568-492: A series of vitae or instructive biographical narratives, tied to the liturgical calendar of the Roman Catholic Church . They are presented as lives of the saints, but the profusion of miraculous happenings and above all their uncritical context are characteristics of hagiography . The Legenda was intended to inspire extemporized homilies and sermons appropriate to the saint of the day. Urban legends are

639-411: A third wife, Nunakawahime ( 沼河比売 ) of Koshi . A tiny god riding on the waves of the sea in a bean-pod appears before Ōkuninushi. A god in the form of a scarecrow named Kuebiko ( 久延毘古 ) identifies the dwarf as Sukunabikona-no-Kami ( 少名毘古那神 ), a son of Kamimusubi-no-Kami ( 神産巣日神 ), one of the three primordial Kotoamatsukami . Sukunabikona assists Ōkuninushi in his task of creating and developing

710-471: Is a loanword from Old French that entered English usage c.  1340 . The Old French noun legende derives from the Medieval Latin legenda . In its early English-language usage, the word indicated a narrative of an event. The word legendary was originally a noun (introduced in the 1510s) meaning a collection or corpus of legends. This word changed to legendry , and legendary became

781-465: Is a condensed summary of the contents of the text, including many of the names of gods, emperors, and locations as well as events which took place in association with them. The original Japanese is included in parentheses where appropriate. Ō no Yasumaro 's preface, in the form of a dedicatory address to Empress Genmei , begins with a poem summarizing the main contents of the work. He then relates how Emperor Tenmu commissioned Hieda no Are to memorize

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852-537: Is an early Japanese chronicle of myths , legends, hymns , genealogies, oral traditions , and semi-historical accounts down to 641 concerning the origin of the Japanese archipelago , the kami ( 神 ) , and the Japanese imperial line . It is claimed in its preface to have been composed by Ō no Yasumaro at the request of Empress Genmei in the early 8th century (711–712), and thus is usually considered to be

923-545: Is near Mount Unebi in Kashihara , Nara Prefecture . Veneration of Jimmu was a central component of the imperial cult that formed following the Meiji Restoration . In 1873, a holiday called Kigensetsu was established on February 11. The holiday commemorated the anniversary of Jimmu's ascension to the throne 2,532 years earlier. After World War II , the holiday was criticized as too closely associated with

994-489: Is the oldest existing manuscript. While divided into the Ise branch, it is actually a mixture of the two branches. The monk Ken'yu based his copy on Ōnakatomi Sadayo's copy. In 1266, Sadayo copied volumes one and three but did not have access to the second volume. Finally, in 1282, he obtained access to the second volume through a Urabe-branch manuscript that he used to transcribe. The Kojiki contains various songs and poems. While

1065-553: The Nihon Shoki Unless otherwise noted (as BC), years are in CE  / AD   Imperial Consort and Regent Empress Jingū is not traditionally listed. Legend Many legends operate within the realm of uncertainty, never being entirely believed by the participants, but also never being resolutely doubted. Legends are sometimes distinguished from myths in that they concern human beings as

1136-533: The Gōtō Kojiki ( 鼇頭古事記 , " Kojiki with Marginal Notes") was printed by Deguchi (Watarai) Nobuyoshi , a priest at Ise Shrine , in 1687 ( Jōkyō 4). The birth of nativist studies ( kokugaku ) and nationalist sentiment during the Edo period saw a reappraisal of the Kojiki . Kokugaku scholars saw Japan's earliest writings as the repository of a uniquely superior Japanese identity that could be revived by recovering

1207-454: The Kojiki and Nihon Shoki achieved a sort of scriptural status under State Shintō , which viewed the stories contained therein as orthodox national history. Official ideology upheld as unquestionable fact the belief in the emperor's divinity and the idea of Japan as a racially superior "national body" ( kokutai ), with scholars who questioned their veracity facing the threat of censorship, forced resignation, or even trial in court. Until

1278-599: The Kojiki is apparently based on sources handed down within the court. Whereas the Nihon Shoki , owing to its status as one of the six imperial histories, was widely read and studied during the Heian period (794–1185), the Kojiki was mostly treated as an ancillary text. Indeed, a work known as the Sendai Kuji Hongi (also known as the Kujiki ), claimed to have been authored by Prince Shōtoku and Soga no Umako,

1349-628: The Kojiki was a more trustworthy source for ancient Japanese traditions than was the Shoki precisely because it was free of "Chinese mentality". He viewed the Kojiki as a true account of actual events that when read correctly, could reveal Japan in its pristine, ideal state as a community where the kami , the emperor and the people lived in harmony. Norinaga's work was carried on in different directions by his disciple Hirata Atsutane and his rivals Fujitani Mitsue (1781–1849) and Tachibana Moribe (1768–1823), who each produced commentaries and treatises on

1420-617: The Meiji era , the text's sacred nature was not known to have been questioned. However, the Kojiki was still widely seen as inferior to the Nihon Shoki until Motoori Norinaga wrote the Kojiki-den . In 1913, Tsuda Sōkichi argued in a study that the Kojiki , particularly in its earlier sections, was neither history nor myth but a document created to legitimize the rule of the imperial line. While his conclusions led to considerable controversy, his influence remains in subsequent studies of

1491-603: The Seto Inland Sea with the assistance of local chieftain Sao Netsuhiko  [ ja ] . As they reached Naniwa (modern-day Osaka ), they encountered another local chieftain, Nagasunehiko ("the long-legged man"), and Itsuse was killed in the ensuing battle. Jimmu realized that they had been defeated because they battled eastward against the sun, so he decided to land on the east side of Kii Peninsula and to battle westward. They reached Kumano , and, with

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1562-451: The Seto Inland Sea , captured Yamato , and established this as his center of power. In modern Japan, Emperor Jimmu's legendary ascension is marked as National Foundation Day on February 11. There is no evidence to suggest that Jimmu existed and is regarded by most modern scholars as a legendary figure. Jimmu is recorded as Japan's first ruler in two early chronicles, Nihon Shoki (721) and Kojiki (712). Nihon Shoki gives

1633-883: The Taika Reforms with the ascendancy of the Nakatomi clan . Both the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki give Jimmu's name as Kamu-yamato Iware-biko no Mikoto ( 神倭伊波礼琵古命 ) or Kamu-yamato Iware-biko no Sumeramikoto ( 神日本磐余彦天皇 ) . Iware indicates a toponym (an old place name in the Nara region) whose precise purport is unclear. '-no-Mikoto' is an honorific, indicating divinity, nobility, or royalty. Among his other names were: Wakamikenu no Mikoto ( 若御毛沼命 ) , Kamu-yamato Iware-biko hohodemi no Mikoto ( 神日本磐余彦火火出見尊 ) and Hikohohodemi ( 彦火火出見 ) . The Imperial House of Japan traditionally based its claim to

1704-700: The Tōhoku region. In Yamato, Nigihayahi , who also claimed descent from the Takamagahara gods, was protected by Nagasunehiko. However, when Nigihayahi met Jimmu, he accepted Jimmu's legitimacy. At this point, Jimmu is said to have ascended to the throne of Japan. Upon scaling a Nara mountain to survey the Seto Inland Sea he now controlled, Jimmu remarked that it was shaped like the "heart" rings made by mating dragonflies , archaically akitsu 秋津. A mosquito then tried to steal Jimmu's royal blood but since Jimmu

1775-710: The University of Utah , introduced the term to the general public in a series of popular books published beginning in 1981. Brunvand used his collection of legends, The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends & Their Meanings (1981) to make two points: first, that legends and folklore do not occur exclusively in so-called primitive or traditional societies, and second, that one could learn much about urban and modern culture by studying such tales. Kojiki The Kojiki ( 古事記 , "Records of Ancient Matters" or "An Account of Ancient Matters") , also sometimes read as Furukotofumi or Furukotobumi ,

1846-483: The fairy tale as "poetic, legend historic." Early scholars such as Karl Wehrhan  [ de ] Friedrich Ranke and Will Erich Peuckert followed Grimm's example in focussing solely on the literary narrative, an approach that was enriched particularly after the 1960s, by addressing questions of performance and the anthropological and psychological insights provided in considering legends' social context. Questions of categorising legends, in hopes of compiling

1917-630: The talking animal formula of Aesop identifies his brief stories as fables and not legends. The parable of the Prodigal Son would be a legend if it were told as having actually happened to a specific son of a historical father. If it included a donkey that gave sage advice to the Prodigal Son it would be a fable. Legend may be transmitted orally, passed on person-to-person, or, in the original sense, through written text. Jacobus de Voragine 's Legenda Aurea or "The Golden Legend" comprises

1988-706: The "Record of the Emperors", the Kokki ( 国記 , also Kunitsufumi ) or the "National Record", and other "fundamental records" ( 本記 , hongi or mototsufumi ) pertaining to influential clans and free subjects. Out of these texts, only the Kokki survived the burning of Soga no Emishi 's estate (where these documents were kept) during the Isshi incident of 645, and was itself apparently lost soon after. The Kojiki 's preface indicates that leading families also kept their own historical and genealogical records; indeed, one of

2059-411: The "emperor system." It was suspended from 1948 to 1966, but later reinstated as National Foundation Day . Between 1873 and 1945 an imperial envoy sent offerings every year to the supposed site of Jimmu's tomb. In 1890 Kashihara Shrine was established nearby, on the spot where Jimmu was said to have ascended to the throne. Before and during World War II , expansionist propaganda made frequent use of

2130-686: The 2600th anniversary of Jimmu's ascension and built a monument to Hakkō ichiu despite the fact that all historians knew Jimmu was a mythical figure. In 1941 the Japanese government charged the one historian who dared to challenge Jimmu's existence publicly, Tsuda Sōkichi . Since after World War II , when the prohibition on questioning the Kojiki and the Nihongi was lifted, documentary research in China and archaeological research in Japan has undermined much of

2201-492: The Chinese alchemist and explorer Xu Fu , a hypothesis supported by certain traditions in Japan and regarded as possible by some modern scholars. The Yayoi period , during which significant changes in Japanese metallurgy and pottery occurred, started around the time of his supposed arrival. However, the legend of Xu Fu's voyage also has numerous inconsistencies with the linguistic and anthropological history of Japan. ‡ not in

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2272-467: The adjectival form. By 1613, English-speaking Protestants began to use the word when they wished to imply that an event (especially the story of any saint not acknowledged in John Foxe 's Actes and Monuments ) was fictitious. Thus, legend gained its modern connotations of "undocumented" and " spurious ", which distinguish it from the meaning of chronicle . In 1866, Jacob Grimm described

2343-407: The ancient language they were written in; the Kojiki , by virtue of its antiquity, gained the status of a sacred text. The Kojiki came to be highly regarded that scholars such as Kada no Azumamaro and Kamo no Mabuchi – himself a student of Azumamaro – produced annotated versions of it. The Kojiki received its most serious study and exposition in the hands of Motoori Norinaga , who obtained

2414-480: The chronicles Kojiki and Nihon Shoki , Jimmu's brothers Itsuse no Mikoto , Inahi no Mikoto , and Mikeiri no Mikoto were born in Takachiho , the southern part of Kyūshū in modern-day Miyazaki Prefecture . They moved eastward to find a location more appropriate for administering the entire country. Jimmu's older brother, Itsuse no Mikoto, originally led the migration, and led the clan eastward through

2485-498: The claims of noble families and to reorganize them into a new system of ranks and titles are also possible factors for its compilation. The Kojiki 's narrative establishes the Yamato line 's right to rule via myth and legend, portraying it as the progeny of heavenly deities and the rightful heir to the land of Japan. A good part of the latter portion of the text is spent recounting various genealogies which served not only to give

2556-512: The dates and many of the details are fictitious. Historian Kenneth G. Henshall stated that Jimmu's conquest may also reflect a time when the Yayoi people from continental Asia immigrated in masses starting from Kyushu and moving eastward during the Yayoi period . Some scholars suggest that there may have been a real person behind Jimmu. He could have been a local ruler who conquered the area near Kashihara after 62 BC . Some scholars believe he

2627-503: The dates of his reign as 660–585 BC. In the reign of Emperor Kanmu (737–806), the eighth-century scholar Ōmi no Mifune retroactively designated rulers before Emperor Ōjin as tennō ( 天皇 , "heavenly sovereign") , a Japanese pendant to the Chinese imperial title Tiān-dì (天帝), and gave several of them including Jimmu their posthumous names . Prior to this time, these rulers had been known as Sumera no mikoto / Ōkimi . This practice had begun under Empress Suiko , and took root after

2698-442: The first of six histories commissioned by the imperial court, which was modeled on Chinese dynastic histories and was intended to be a national chronicle that could be shown with pride to foreign envoys, the Kojiki is inward looking, concerned mainly with the ruling family and prominent clans, and is apparently intended for internal consumption. Whereas the Nihon Shoki uses a variety of source documents (including Chinese texts),

2769-465: The genealogies and records of the imperial house years earlier, and how Genmei in turn ordered Yasumaro to compile a written record of what Are had learned. He finally concludes the preface with a brief explanation of the Chinese characters used to transcribe native Japanese words in the text and the division of the work into three volumes. Izanagi divides the world among his three children: Amaterasu

2840-461: The guidance of a three-legged crow , Yatagarasu ("eight-span crow"), they moved to Yamato . There, they once again battled Nagasunehiko and were victorious. The record in the Nihon Shoki of Emperor Jimmu states that his armed forces defeated a group of Emishi ( 蝦夷 , 'shrimp barbarians' ) before his enthronement. The Emishi were an ethnic group who lived in Honshu , particularly

2911-641: The historical records and myths are written in a form of the Chinese language , the songs are written in Old Japanese with the Man'yōgana writing system, which uses Chinese characters only phonetically. The Kojiki is divided into three parts: the Kamitsumaki ( 上巻 , "upper volume" ) , the Nakatsumaki ( 中巻 , "middle volume") and the Shimotsumaki ( 下巻 , "lower volume") . What follows

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2982-542: The imperial (Yamato) court and prominent clans began during the reigns of Emperors Keitai and Kinmei in the 6th century, with the first concerted effort at historical compilation of which we have record being the one made in 620 under the auspices of Prince Shotoku and Soga no Umako . According to the Nihon Shoki , the documents compiled under their initiative were the Tennōki ( 天皇記 , also Sumera-mikoto no fumi ) or

3053-413: The imperial family an air of antiquity (which may not necessarily reflect historical reality), but also served to tie, whether true or not, many existing clans' genealogies to their own. Regardless of the work's original intent, it finalized and possibly even formulated the framework by which Japanese history was examined in terms of the reign of emperors. In contrast to the Nihon Shoki (compiled 720),

3124-441: The imperial lineage. The dates of Jimmu reigning from 660 BC to 585 BC are improbable. According to Dr. Lu, the year 660 BC was probably selected by the writers of Nihon Shoki to put the founding of Japan on a kanoto-tori year. However, the stories of Jimmu may reflect real events of the mid to late Yayoi period. According to historian Peter Wetzler, Jimmu's conquest of Osaka and Nara may reflect an actual event. Still,

3195-438: The information in both the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki. No evidence has been found for Jimmu's existence, except the mention in the Nihon Shoki and Kojiki . Today most modern scholars agree that the traditional founding of the imperial dynasty in 660 BC is a myth and that Jimmu is legendary. Emperor Sujin's historicity is considered possible by historians, while Emperor Kinmei is the first verifiable historical figure in

3266-426: The jealousy of his brothers, who begin to make repeated attempts on his life. Seeking refuge in a subterranean realm ruled by Susanoo called Ne-no-Katasukuni ( 根之堅洲国 ), Ōnamuji meets and falls in love with Susanoo's daughter Suseribime-no-Mikoto ( 須勢理毘売 ). Upon learning of their affair, Susanoo imposes four trials on Ōnamuji, each of which he overcame with Suseribime's help. Ōnamuji manages to outwit Susanoo and leave

3337-421: The legends in Ōjin's chronicles seem to derive from Soga clan traditions. Jimmu figures as a direct descendant of the sun goddess, Amaterasu via the side of his father, Ugayafukiaezu . Amaterasu had a son called Ame no Oshihomimi no Mikoto and through him a grandson named Ninigi-no-Mikoto . She sent her grandson to the Japanese islands where he eventually married Konohana-Sakuya-hime . Among their three sons

3408-465: The main characters and do not necessarily have supernatural origins, and sometimes in that they have some sort of historical basis whereas myths generally do not. The Brothers Grimm defined legend as " folktale historically grounded". A by-product of the "concern with human beings" is the long list of legendary creatures , leaving no "resolute doubt" that legends are "historically grounded." A modern folklorist 's professional definition of legend

3479-530: The middle (second) volume. It is due to this neglect that the Kojiki is available only in comparatively late manuscripts, the earliest of which dates to the late 14th century. It was with the advent of printing in the early modern period that the Kojiki first reached a wide audience. The earliest printed edition of the text was the Kan'ei Kojiki ( 寛永古事記 ), published in Kyoto in 1644 ( Kan'ei 21). A second edition,

3550-469: The moment a legend is retold as fiction, its authentic legendary qualities begin to fade and recede: in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow , Washington Irving transformed a local Hudson River Valley legend into a literary anecdote with "Gothic" overtones , which actually tended to diminish its character as genuine legend. Stories that exceed the boundaries of " realism " are called " fables ". For example,

3621-508: The oldest extant literary work in Japan . The myths contained in the Kojiki as well as the Nihon Shoki ( 日本書紀 ) are part of the inspiration behind many practices and unified "Shinto orthodoxy". Later, they were incorporated into Shinto practices such as the misogi purification ritual. It is believed that the compilation of various genealogical and anecdotal histories of

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3692-805: The phrase hakkō ichiu , a term coined by Tanaka Chigaku based on a passage in the Nihon Shoki discussing Emperor Jimmu. Some media incorrectly attributed the phrase to Emperor Jimmu. For the 1940 Kigensetsu celebration, marking the supposed 2,600th anniversary of Jimmu's enthronement, the Peace Tower was constructed in Miyazaki . The same year numerous stone monuments relating to key events in Jimmu's life were erected around Japan. The sites at which these monuments were erected are known as Emperor Jimmu Sacred Historical Sites. In 1940 Japan celebrated

3763-458: The realm, taking his new wife Suseribime as well as Susanoo's sword, koto , and bow and arrows back with him, but not before being advised by Susanoo to change his name to Ōkuninushi-no-Kami ( 大国主神 , "Master of the Great Land"). Ōkuninushi defeats his wicked brothers and becomes the lord of Ashihara-no-Nakatsukuni. Under the name Yachihoko-no-Kami ( 八千矛神 , "Eight Thousand Spears"), he takes

3834-465: The reasons it gives for the compilation of the Kojiki is the correction of errors that had supposedly crept into these documents. According to the preface, Emperor Tenmu (reigned 673–686) ordered the review and emendation of clan documents and commissioned a certain court attendant ( toneri ) of exceptional memory named Hieda no Are to memorize records and oral traditions concerning the imperial lineage. Beyond this memorization, nothing occurred until

3905-412: The reign of Empress Genmei (reigned 707–715), who on the 18th of the 9th month of 711 ( Wadō 4) ordered the courtier Ō no Yasumaro to record what had been learned by Hieda no Are. He finished and presented his work to Empress Genmei on the 28th of the 1st month of 712 (Wadō 5). The Kojiki is a collation of different traditions woven into a single "official" mythology, made in an attempt to justify

3976-399: The rule of the imperial Yamato polity and at the same time to subsume different interest groups under its wing by giving them a place and an interest in the national genealogy-mythology. Apart from furthering the imperial agenda, an increased interest in the nation's origins in reaction to the influx of foreign culture and the need for an authoritative genealogical account by which to consider

4047-445: The text (particularly in post- World War II scholarship), which amounts largely to development and correction of the line of thought originally proposed by him. In reaction to Tsuda, Watsuji Tetsurō (1920) argued for a literary appreciation of the Kojiki, claiming that this gave it inner coherence. Kurano Kenji (1927) took it a step further, proposing that the Kojiki may best be compared with Western epic literature and regarded as

4118-606: The text by authors such as Kurano Kenji, Takeda Yūkichi , Saigō Nobutsuna , and Kōnoshi Takamitsu . There are two major branches of Kojiki manuscripts: Ise and Urabe. The extant Urabe branch consists of 36 existing manuscripts all based on the 1522 copies by Urabe Kanenaga. The Ise branch may be subdivided into the Shinpukuji-bon ( 真福寺本 ) manuscript of 1371–1372 and the Dōka-bon ( 道果本 ) manuscripts. The Dōka sub-branch consists of: The Shinpukuji-bon manuscript (1371–1372)

4189-417: The text. The Kojiki became once more the object of scholarly focus and discussion in the Meiji period with the introduction of Western academic disciplines such as philology and comparative mythology . The importance of the text as a work of literary value was recognized, and scholars realized that its accounts were comparable in many ways to ancient Greek and Roman myths . At the same time, however,

4260-518: The throne on its putative descent from the sun-goddess Amaterasu via Jimmu's great-grandfather Ninigi . In Japanese mythology , the Age of the Gods is the period before Jimmu's accession. The story of Jimmu seems to rework legends associated with the Ōtomo clan (大伴氏), and its function was to establish that clan's links to the ruling family, just as those of Suijin arguably reflect Mononobe tales and

4331-534: The time in which legends about the origins of the imperial dynasty were chronicled in the Kojiki . There are accounts written earlier than either Kojiki and Nihon Shoki that present an alternative version of the story. According to these accounts, Jimmu's dynasty was supplanted by that of Ōjin , whose dynasty was supplanted by that of Keitai . The Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki then combined these three legendary dynasties into one long and continuous genealogy. The traditional site of Jimmu's grave

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4402-498: The two gods each chewed and spat out an object carried by the other (Amaterasu Susanoo's sword, Susanoo Amaterasu's magatama beads) during the rite of oath-taking. Susanoo, declaring himself the winner of the contest, "raged with victory" and proceeds to wreak havoc upon Takamagahara, causing Amaterasu to hide in the Ama-no-Iwato ( 天岩戸 , the "Heavenly Rock Cave"), plunging heaven and earth into total darkness. The gods, led by

4473-451: The wise Omoikane-no-Kami ( 思金神 ), eventually persuade her to come out of the cave, restoring light to the world. As punishment for his misdeeds, Susanoo is thrown out of Takamagahara. A descendant of Susanoo, Ōnamuji-no-Kami ( 大穴牟遅神 ), helps a hapless hare that had been mistreated by his eighty brothers ( 八十神 , yasogami ); the hare, in turn, helps Ōnamuji win the hand of the goddess Yagamihime ( 八上比売 ) of Inaba . This earns Ōnamuji

4544-448: Was Hikohohodemi no Mikoto , also called Yamasachi-hiko , who married Toyotama-hime . She was the daughter of Ryūjin , the Japanese sea god. They had a single son called Hikonagisa Takeugaya Fukiaezu no Mikoto . The boy was abandoned by his parents at birth and consequently raised by Tamayori-hime , his mother's younger sister. They eventually married and had four sons. The last of these, Hikohohodemi, became Emperor Jimmu. According to

4615-496: Was a god incarnate Emperor, akitsumikami ( 現御神 ) , a dragonfly killed the mosquito. Japan thus received its classical name the Dragonfly Islands, akitsushima ( 秋津島 ) . According to the Kojiki , Jimmu died when he was 126 years old. The Emperor's posthumous name literally means "divine might" or "god-warrior". It is generally thought that Jimmu's name and character evolved into their present shape just before

4686-559: Was allotted Takamagahara ( 高天原 , the "Plain of High Heaven"), Tsukuyomi the night, and Susanoo the seas. Susanoo, who missed his mother and kept weeping and howling incessantly, rejects his appointed task, leading Izanagi to expel him. Susanoo then goes up to Takamagahara, claiming to wish to see his sister. When a suspicious Amaterasu went out to meet him clad in armor, Susanoo protested his innocence and proposed that they exchange oaths . Five male kami (Amaterasu's sons) and three female kami (Susanoo's daughters) come into existence when

4757-529: Was considered to be earlier and more reliable than the Kojiki . (Modern scholarly consensus holds the Kuji Hongi to be a Heian period forgery based on both the Kojiki and the Shoki , although certain portions may indeed preserve genuine early traditions and sources.) By the Kamakura period (1185–1333), the work languished in obscurity such that very few people had access to the text, particularly that of

4828-501: Was effectively obliterated, Tangherlini concluded. In a narrow Christian sense, legenda ("things to be read [on a certain day, in church]") were hagiographical accounts, often collected in a legendary. Because saints' lives are often included in many miracle stories, legend , in a wider sense, came to refer to any story that is set in a historical context, but that contains supernatural , divine or fantastic elements. History preserved orally through many generations often takes on

4899-469: Was present in Miyazaki during the first century BC while others say he was there during the third or fourth century AD . Nevertheless, there is a high probability that there was a powerful dynasty in the vicinity of Miyazaki Prefecture during the Kofun period . According to Louis Frédéric , he may have been a fusion of Suijin and Keitai . The Japanese historian Ino Okifu identifies Emperor Jimmu with

4970-402: Was proposed by Timothy R. Tangherlini in 1990: Legend, typically, is a short (mono-) episodic, traditional, highly ecotypified historicized narrative performed in a conversational mode, reflecting on a psychological level a symbolic representation of folk belief and collective experiences and serving as a reaffirmation of commonly held values of the group to whose tradition it belongs. Legend

5041-510: Was subsequently largely abandoned. Compared to the highly structured folktale, legend is comparatively amorphous, Helmut de Boor noted in 1928. The narrative content of legend is in realistic mode, rather than the wry irony of folktale; Wilhelm Heiske remarked on the similarity of motifs in legend and folktale and concluded that, in spite of its realistic mode , legend is not more historical than folktale. In Einleitung in der Geschichtswissenschaft (1928), Ernst Bernheim asserted that

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