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The details of this curious legend deserve attention for the sake of their close relation to the observances of the Shinto cult. Moreover, the mythology now takes a new departure. At the time of Izanagi's return from hades, vague reference is made to human beings, but after Susanoo's departure from the "plain of high heaven," he is represented as holding direct converse with them.
The Sun goddess judges that since female Kami were produced from the fragments of Susanoo's sword and male Kami from her own string of jewels, the test which he himself proposed has resulted in his conviction; but he, repudiating that verdict, proceeds to break down the divisions of the rice-fields laid out by the goddess, to fill up the ditches, and to defile the palace details which suggest either that, according to Japanese tradition, heaven has its agriculture and architecture just as earth has, or that the "plain of high heaven" was really the name of a place in the Far East.
He is saved from the first two perils through the agency of miraculous scarves given to him by Princess Forward, Susanoo's daughter, who has fallen in love with him; and from the last dilemma a mouse instructs him how to emerge. *A son of Susanoo. These words "not in Korea" are worthy of note, as will presently be appreciated.
Susanoo falls asleep during the process, and the Great-Name Possessor binds the sleeping Kami's hair to the rafters of the house, places a huge rock at the entrance, seizes Susanoo's life-preserving sword and life-preserving bow and arrows as also his sacred lute,* and taking Princess Forward on his back, flees. The lute brushes against a tree, and its sound rouses Susanoo.
Susanoo then builds for himself and Lady Wonderful a palace at Suga in Izumo, and composes a celebrated verse of Japanese poetry.* Sixth in descent from the offspring of this union is the "Kami of the great land," called also the "Great-Name Possessor," or the "Kami of the reed plains," or the "Kami of the eight thousand spears," or the "Kami of the great land of the living," the last name being antithetical to Susanoo's title of "Ruler of Hades."
It is not possible, however, to speak with confidence as to the nature of the ships possessed by the Japanese in early times. The first mention of ships occurs in the story of Susanoo's arrival in Japan.
Further, the "river of heaven" the Milky Way which so often figures in Japanese mythology, is prominent in Chinese also, and is there associated with the Spinning Damsel, just as in the Japanese legend it serves the Kami for council-place after the injury done by Susanoo's violence to the Sun goddess and her spinning maidens.
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