“O my beloved Sister! come back to me!” And she answered him:
“O beloved Elder Brother! gladly would I come, but, alas! I have eaten of Yomi’s cooking and am bewitched. Let me return and speak to him, but do not thou follow me!”
So Izanagi waited anxiously without, till, growing impatient at her long delay, he broke a tooth off his comb, lighting it as a torch, and so dared to enter those terrible shades. Through dark and dreadful ways he wandered, and his heart quailed within him.
But Yomi was wroth with him for his daring, and smote Izanami so that when he found her she lay as one altered in death, with Eight Witches at her head and her feet. Then a great horror fell upon Izanagi; he turned and fled swiftly, and the Eight Ugly Women rose and pursued him. On he ran, through winding ways where icy blasts fly shrieking; and the Witches swept after him and would have caught him, but he seized the wreath from his head and flung it down, and it was changed into bunches of grapes. When the Witches saw these they stopped and greedily devoured them; then, gathering up their robes, rose and pursued again.
Izanagi felt the chill of their coming, and drew out a many-toothed comb from the right bunch of his hair and threw it behind him. Behold! as it touched the ground, there sprang up a hedge of young bamboo shoots across the path. The Witches swooped down, pulled up the young shoots, and ate them to the last one; then again gave chase.
Now, Izanami, too, was angered against him, for she had been put to shame; and she sent five hundred warriors from Yomi to pursue him. When the rush and the tramping drew nearer, Izanagi unsheathed his ten-span sword, and in his despair his breath failed as at the approach of Death. Then suddenly appeared before him the Gate of the Pass of Yomi; and hastily plucking some peaches which grew by the gate, he threw them, and scattered his pursuers, and himself passed through into the light. And he rolled a mighty stone across the mouth of the opening, so that none hereafter could move it.
The peaches that had saved him he named Their Augustness the Great Divine Fruit, and they are honored in some parts of Japan to this day.
Now, when he came back into the world again, Izanagi felt very weary, and searched for a clear stream to wash away the foulness of the Lower Regions which clung to him. When he had found one he bathed therein, and of this washing many evil gods were born; among them were the Gods of Crookedness, who love to plague mankind. Seeing this evil, he made the Gods of Straightening, to make crooked things straight.
Now, when he had rested and accomplished his purification, he created the greatest of his children in this wise:
Descending once more into the clear stream, he bathed his left eye, and forth sprang Amaterasu, the great Sun Goddess.