Toyotama-hime no Ubuya

The Toyotama-hime no Ubuya narrative, in the upper scroll of the Kojiki (712 CE) and the age-of-the-gods tenth section of the Nihon Shoki (720 CE), tells how Toyotama-bime, daughter of the sea god, came pregnant to the land to bear the child of Ho-ori-no-Mikoto (Yamasachi-hiko). She has a hut built on the shore, its roof thatched with cormorant feathers, and asks her husband not to watch her give birth, since she will return to her true form. Ho-ori cannot resist and looks: she is coiled as a great wani (a crocodile or dragon-serpent). Ashamed of being seen, she leaves the child, Ugayafukiaezu-no-Mikoto, and returns to the sea. She later sends her younger sister Tamayori-bime to raise the child; Tamayori-bime marries the grown Ugayafukiaezu and bears Emperor Jimmu. The narrative is a classic 'do not look' taboo myth, paralleling Izanagi's visit to Yomi and the Urashima box. Two generations of marriages between heavenly and sea-deity lines fold the sea god's line into the imperial succession. The name Ugayafukiaezu - 'the cormorant-feather thatch unfinished' - is glossed from the unfinished roof of the birthing hut. The site is Udo Jingu, set in a cliffside cave in Nichinan, Miyazaki, with the 'Ochichi Iwa' and 'Ochichi-mizu'. The Nihon Shoki preserves variant versions of the wani form. Motoori Norinaga's Kojiki-den provides detailed commentary.