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There seems to be a sense of divine magic in the very atmosphere, through all the luminous day, brooding over the vapoury land, over the ghostly blue of the flood a sense of Shinto. With my fancy full of the legends of the Kojiki, the rhythmic chant of the engines comes to my ears as the rhythm of a Shinto ritual mingled with the names of gods: Koto-shiro-nushi-no-Kami, Oho-kuni-nushi-no-Kami.
Once the tiny steamer which runs daily from Matsue to Mionoseki encountered some unexpectedly terrible weather on her outward journey, just after reaching the open sea. The crew insisted that something displeasing to Koto-shiro-nushi-no-Kami must have been surreptitiously brought on board. All the passengers were questioned in vain.
And the people of Yasugi aver that one may better serve the deity by eating eggs than by doing as the people of Mionoseki do; for whenever one eats a chicken or devours an egg, one destroys an enemy of Koto-shiro-nushi-no-Kami. From Matsue to Mionoseki by steamer is a charming journey in fair weather.
My companion touched my arm to call my attention to a group of pine- trees on the summit of a peak to port, and laughed and sang a Japanese song. How swiftly we had been travelling I then for the first time understood, for I recognised the four famous pines of Mionoseki, on the windy heights above the shrine of Koto-shiro-nushi-no-Kami.
Immediately a number of passengers rose to their feet, and, turning their faces toward the torii began to clap their hands in Shinto prayer. I said to my friend: 'There are fifty baskets full of chickens in the gangway; and yet these people are praying to Koto-shiro-nushi-no-Kami that nothing horrible may happen to this boat.
Only the level blue of the flood under the hollow blue of the sky and, just beyond the promontory, one far, small white speck: the sail of a junk. The horizon is naked. Gone! but how soundlessly, how swiftly! She makes nineteen knots. And, oh! Koto-shiro-nushi-no-Kami, there probably existed eggs on board! KITZUKI, July 20, 1891. AKIRA is no longer with me.
My son Ya- he-koto-shiro-nushi-no-Kami will be the one to tell you." . . . So they asked the Deity again, saying: "Thy son Koto-shiro-nushi-no-Kami has now spoken thus. Hast thou other sons who should speak?"
For a jovial god is this Ebisu, or Koto-shiro-nushi-no-Kami, patron of honest labour and especially of fishers, though less of a laughter-lover than his father, the Great Deity of Kitzuki, about whom 'tis said: 'Whenever the happy laugh, the God rejoices.
Concerning the reason why the Cock is thus detested by the Great Deity of Mionoseki, and banished from his domain, divers legends are told; but the substance of all of them is about as follows: As we read in the Kojiki, Koto-shiro-nushi-no-Kami, Son of the Great Deity of Kitsuki, was wont to go to Cape Miho, 'to pursue birds and catch fish. And for other reasons also he used to absent himself from home at night, but had always to return before dawn.
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