Yamato-takeru no Mikoto Tosei

Yamato-takeru-no-Mikoto, another name of Ousu-no-Mikoto, son of Emperor Keiko, suppresses the Kumaso brothers and Izumo-takeru on his father's orders, then is sent to pacify the twelve circuits of the east. He receives the sword Kusanagi from Yamatohime-no-Mikoto at Ise and sets out eastward. In Sagami Province he is ambushed by the kuni-no-miyatsuko but escapes by cutting back the burning grass; at the strait of Hashirimizu, his consort Oto-tachibana-hime-no-Mikoto throws herself into the sea to allow the crossing. On the return, he challenges the deity of Mount Ibuki and falls ill; at Nobono he leaves the kuni-shinobi-uta and dies, and is said to have flown away to Yamato as a white bird. The narrative has two stages, the western expedition (Kumaso and Izumo) and the eastern expedition (the twelve circuits of the east and the Emishi), and supports the royal-myth framework of a father's charge and a son's long campaign. Three motifs - sword, song and white bird - anchor the cycle: the transmission of Kusanagi extends the Ame-no-Murakumo treasure-sword tradition; the kuni-shinobi song at Nobono carries the elegiac memory of the kingship; and the white-bird transformation links to memorial sending-off rites and regional tomb traditions. Related sites include Yaizu in Shizuoka, Hashirimizu Jinja in Yokosuka (Kanagawa), Mount Ibuki on the Shiga and Gifu border, Nobono in Kameyama (Mie) and the Shiratori imperial tomb. The sword Kusanagi is enshrined at Atsuta Jingu in Atsuta-ku, Nagoya (Aichi), and the eastern expedition cycle is directly tied to the Atsuta cult. Sources include the Yamato-takeru section in the central scroll of the Kojiki (712 CE) and the Keiko chapter of the Nihon Shoki (720 CE). Surviving fragments of the Fudoki, medieval war chronicles, and Edo gazetteers and shrine origin texts preserve the eastward-expedition sections and the regional traditions.