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With this in his fore-paw, he ran at the oni, whacked him soundly, and stuck him all over with the sharp prickles. The oni yelling with pain ran away as fast as he could run. He was so frightened that he never stopped until he reached Yemma's palace, when he fell down breathless. He then told his master the tale of his adventure, but begged that he might never again be sent against Daikoku.
Then they get ashamed of themselves for gambling, and after a few days the party breaks up and each one goes to his regular business again. A long while ago, when the idols of Buddha and his host of disciples came to Japan, after traveling through China from India, they were very much vexed because the people still liked the little black fellow named Daikoku.
Then they laugh heartily and try it again. Ebisu is the patron of daily food, which is rice and fish, and in old times was chiefly fish. He is nearly as fat as Daikoku, but wears a court noble's high cap. He is always fishing or enjoying his game. When very happy, he sits on a rock by the sea, with his right leg bent under him, and a big red fish, called the tai, under his left arm.
'There are many deities enshrined at Kitzuki, are there not? I ask. 'Yes; but the great deity of Kitzuki is Oho-kuni-nushi-no-Kami, whom the people more commonly call Daikoku. Here also is worshipped his son, whom many call Ebisu.
Originally the Fox was sacred to Inari only as the Tortoise is still sacred to Kompira; the Deer to the Great Deity of Kasuga; the Rat to Daikoku; the Tai-fish to Ebisu; the White Serpent to Benten; or the Centipede to Bishamon, God of Battles. But in the course of centuries the Fox usurped divinity. And the stone images of him are not the only outward evidences of his cult.
It is all fascinating. Here is none of the indolence and apathy which one associates with Oriental life, and which I have seen in Polynesia. These yellow, brown, tawny, swarthy, olive-tinted men are all intent on gain; busy, industrious, frugal, striving, and, no matter what their creed is, all paying homage to Daikoku.
Those bearing the hammer and fan were the Daikoku band: they were to sing the ballads Those with the castanets were the Ebisu party and formed the chorus.
Shino made his bow to his master, tightened his tiger-skin belt around his loins and set off. It was not an easy thing to find Daikoku, even though every one worshipped him. So the oni had to travel a long way, and ask a great many questions of people, and often lose his way before he got any clue.
The cloven turnip of Daikoku, god of fortune. The god Sennin creating a man by his breath. A shining full moon and flying geese. Wild geese flying over reeds. The moon rising from between snow-clad mountains, an oval of iron, gold and silver, no larger than a man's palm, yet suggesting the vast reaches of a moonlit night.
Now Yemma had under him a whole legion of oni, some green, some black, others blue as indigo, and others of a vermillion color, which he usually sent on ordinary errands. But for so important an expedition he now called Shino a very cunning old fellow, and ordered him to kill or remove Daikoku out of the way.
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