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Thus ended the career of the leading Japanese hero of romance. His story sounds like a fairy-tale, though it may well be that Yamato-Daké was a real person and that many of the things told of him actually occurred. To-day the women of Japan are kept in seclusion and take no part in affairs of state. This does not seem to have been always the case.
Yamato-dake prefaced his campaign by worshipping at the shrine of Ise, where he received the sword "Herb-queller," which Susanoo had taken from the last chieftain of the Izumo tribesmen. Thence he sailed along the coast to Suruga, where he landed, and was nearly destroyed by the burning of a moor into which he had been persuaded to penetrate in search of game.
The vessels of the latter assembled with the intention of offering resistance, but at the aspect of the Japanese fleet and the incomparably superior arms and arrows of the men it carried, they submitted unconditionally and became personal attendants on Yamato-dake. Three things are noticeable in this narrative.
And Sujin the civilizer, having lived long and ruled wisely, was gathered to his fathers, and slept death's dreamless sleep. We have now to deal with the principal hero of Japanese legend, Yamato-Daké, the conqueror. His story is full of myth and fable, but there is history in it, too, and it is well worth the telling.
Keiko's reign is remarkable chiefly for this expedition to the south, which involved a residence of six years in Hyuga, and for the campaigns of one of the greatest of Japan's heroes, Prince Yamato-dake.
But although Yamato-dake subsequently entered Shinano, where he suffered much from the arduous nature of the ground, and though he sent a general to explore Koshi, he ultimately retired to Owari, where he died from the effects of fatigue and exposure according to some authorities, of a wound from a poisoned arrow according to others.
For example, when Prince Itoshi, son of the Emperor Suinin, died without leaving a son to perpetuate his name, the Itoshibe was established for that purpose; and when Prince Yamato-dake perished without ascending the throne, the Takebe was formed to preserve the memory of his achievements.
For ages the country around the Bay of Yedo, now the chief centre of activity and civilization in Japan, was wild and thinly peopled. The first mention of it in history is in the famous march of Yamato-Daké, whose wife leaped here into the waves as a sacrifice to the maritime gods.
Keiko, the father, sent a messenger with words of comfort, but when he arrived the heroic Yamato-Daké was dead. He was buried near where he died, and from his tomb a white bird was seen to fly. On opening the tomb nothing was found but the dead hero's chaplet and robes. The place where the bird was seen to alight bears still a name signifying Imperial Tomb of the White Bird.
It is not explicitly recorded that Yamato-dake had any further encounter with the Yemishi, but figurative references show that he had much fighting.
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