Following this account of Yamato-dake's adventures in the West, there are given the interesting traditions concerning his expedition to the East, and his encounters with the Ainos, who inhabited the northern part of the island. That there was a basis of fact to these traditions there cannot be a doubt. Yet the events have such an air of fable and poetry that it is impossible to separate the fact from the legend. As we have done in previous instances, we give the stories in their essential entirety, leaving to scholars hereafter the task of winnowing the grains of fact out of the chaff which the imagination of the race has left for us.
Prince Yamato-dake took on his expedition to the East the Prince Mi-suki-tomo-mimi-take. The emperor gave him these instructions: “Subdue and pacify the savage deities, and likewise the unsubmissive people of the twelve roads[57] of the East.”
Prince Yamato-dake first visited the temple of the Sun Goddess in Isé, where he worshipped at the shrine of his great ancestress. He must have had a presentiment that he never would return alive from this expedition. His aunt Yamato-hime,[58] who was [pg 070] the priestess of this temple, gave him on his departure the sword[59] which the Impetuous-Male-Deity discovered in the tail of the snake which he slew in Izumo. She also gave him a bag which he was not to open until he found himself in pressing difficulty.
He came to the land of Owari, and appears there to have been smitten by the charms of the Princess Miyazu. And, planning to wed her on his way back, he plighted to her his troth and went on. Then he came to the province of Sagami, where he met the chief of the land. But he deceived him and said that in the midst of a vast moor there is a lagoon where lives a deity. Yamato-dake went over the moor to find the deity. Whereupon the chief set fire to the grass, expecting to see him consumed. But Yamato-dake seeing his danger, and being assured that the time of pressing difficulty had come, opened the bag which his aunt, Yamato-hime, had given him. There he found a fire drill,[60] with which a fire could be struck. He cut away the grass around him with the sword which had been given him, and then set fire to the moor. When he was safe from the fire he sought out and slew the traitorous chief and all the chiefs who were associated with him.
From Sagami he undertook to cross in a boat the waters of Yedo bay to Kazusa opposite. But the sea was rough and they were on the point of being overwhelmed and drowned. Then his wife, the Princess Oto-Tachibana, who accompanied him on this expedition, threw out mats from the boat, and saying, “I will enter the sea instead of the prince; you must finish the task on which you are sent,” she sprang from the boat and sat down on the mats[61] she had thrown out. Immediately the waves were quiet and the boat sailed on in safety. And the comb of the princess was washed ashore, and the people built for it a sacred mausoleum in which it was kept.
Then Prince Yamato-dake penetrated the regions occupied by the Ainos[62] and subdued them. Having accomplished this principal object of his undertaking, he returned by way of the Usui pass opposite to mount Fuji. As he stood in this lofty position and looked out on the sea where his wife had sacrificed herself for his safety, he cried out: “Azuma ha ya!” (O my wife!) Azuma is a name often used in poetry for the part of Japan north of this pass. But whether this myth was invented to explain the name, or the name was derived from the incident, it is impossible to determine.
Then Prince Yomato-dake went into the high lands of Shinano and after he had settled the disturbances which existed there, he came back to Owari where he had left the Princess Miyazu. In one of his excursions into the rebellious regions he was stricken with a fatal illness. In his enfeebled condition he struggled on, almost unable to walk. He made his way towards Isé. At Ōtsu, a village on the coast of Owari bay, he recovered the sword which he had left on his way to the East. In his painful journey he sat down under a pine tree. The spirit of poesy even in his pain came upon him and he sang this little poem[63] in praise of the pine tree:
O mine elder brother, the single pine tree
That art on cape Ōtsu, which directly faces Owari!
If thou single pine tree! wert a person,