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Yamata No Orochi - The Sea Serpent With 8 Heads And 8 Tails

The earliest written Japanese documents “the Kojiki” and “the Nihongi”, describes of a sea serpent called “yamata no orochi”. This serpent could be considered to be fiercer than Leviathan. The serpent is said to have 8 heads and 8 tails with ferocious bright red eyes and a huge belly that looks like red hot lava. The beast is so large that its body covers the distance of eight valleys and eight hills. The name “yamata no orochi” itself means "eight-branch giant snake". It is believed that each head of this giant snake can act individually and even has the capability to breathe fire. The creature has roamed the earth, terrorizing even earthly gods. Legend has it, even though “yamata no orochi” was a sea serpent, it had the ability to move on land as well. When it is in the water masses, sailors even mistake it to an island because on his back grew huge trees that made it look like a forest.

The brutal nature of the beast is calmed by the earthly deities “Tenazuchi” and “Ashinazuchi” who had 8 beautiful daughters. The gods promise the snake, for each year, one of their daughters would be given to him as a sacrifice, if the beast promises to do no harm on the land. So, each year the beast would come to the gods and would ask for the sacrifice if they wanted peace.

At this time in the heaven, “Susanoo” the “wild” “impetuous” god, associated with the sea and storms, gets expelled from Heaven for tricking his sister “Amaterasu” the sun goddess. He descended to earth at Mount Torikama near the Hi River. There he met the earthly deities “Tenazuchi” and “Ashinazuchi”. Susanoo founds them weeping and they share their tragic story with him. They tell him that they are weeping because they were forced to give the Orochi one of their daughters every year for seven years, and now they must sacrifice their eighth daughter “Kushi-inada-hime”. Susanoo tells them that he has descended from heaven and would defeat the monster they fear. But in return he ask for Kushi-inada-hime’s hand in marriage. When the deities agree, he immediately married Kushi-inada-hime and transform her in to a comb and stuck into his hair, in order to protect her against the beast.

Then, he had “Ashinazuchi” and “Tenazuchi” build a large fence with eight gates. On each gate they raised a platform and on each platform they placed a vat. They poured extremely strong sake into each vat. When this was finished, everyone waited for the serpent to arrive. When the serpent arrived for his sacrifice, he saw the vats and immediately dipped his head into it and drank the liquor. After drinking for some time, the serpent fell asleep. Susanoo used this chance to make his attack. He sliced the enormous beast into tiny pieces with his sword. The legend has it, the slaughter was so great that it made the Hi River flowed with blood. As Susanoo finished cutting half of the creature, his sward broke by clashing with a stronger metal found within the monster. He discovered that inside the creature’s body, he has grown a sword so strong that no metal on earth could match its strength and might.

After killing the creature, the land prospered. Susanoo then gifted the blade to his sister Amaterasu as a peace offering and both the god and his new bride were allowed to enter the heaven. There is not much known on yamata no orochi and were mainly mentioned in the adventure of the storm god Susanoo. But “yamata no orochi” is understandably one of the ferocious beings to ever roam the face of the earth. Even though the legend says that the beast brought distruction on the land, there is no record on how the beast did it. More importantly, it is unknown how the beast came to life itself and if the creature was the only one of its kind.

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