Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 2.djvu/169

 the honours bestowed on an expert sword-smith, the household traditions that have grown up about celebrated weapons, the profound study needed to be a competent judge of a sword's qualities,—all these things conspired to give to the katana an importance beyond the limits of ordinary conception. Sword-smiths whose names have been handed down from generation to generation since the seventh century, when the art of forging became a great accomplishment, number thousands, and such was the credit attaching to skill that even an Emperor—Go-toba (1186 )—thought sword-making an occupation worthy of a sovereign. Already in the days of the Emperor Ichijo (987-1011), three thousand blades were recognised as fine, thirty of them as excellent, and four as superlative. Not until the time of the Taikō (sixteenth century), however, did any one acquire universal repute as an infallible judge, competent to identify the work of any of the great masters by examination of the blade alone, without looking at the name chiselled on the tang. Reliance could not, indeed, be placed on the name, since for every genuine blade by a great master, there existed scores of imitations, perfect in every detail that an ordinary eye could detect, including the simulated maker's name and mark. What was involved in identifying a blade may be inferred from that fact, and becomes still more apparent when it is noted that authoritative lists