Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/348

308 with the shaking of certain talismans, will drive away all manner of diseases and prolong life. Students of folklore will not be surprised to find such virtues attributed to the numerals.

Several other examples are given in the Nihongi of inspired messages from the gods. Chiuai Tennō was in this way urged to undertake the conquest of Corea. At the present time these female purveyors of X-material have fallen upon evil days. The Miko are now vagabonds of indifferent character, who for a trifling consideration will undertake to deliver messages from deceased relatives, and who, with their art, are held in the lowest estimation by all sensible people.

The punishments inflicted on Susa no wo are plainly suggested by the Japanese criminal code of the day. This is not the only passage from which we may infer that fines were originally meant to supply the means of making expiatory sacrifices to the gods.

After his banishment Susa no wo visited Corea, but not finding that country to his liking, returned to Japan, and went to the province of Idzumo. Here he slew the eight-headed serpent of Koshi (having first made him drunk) and delivered his intended victim, a young maiden who subsequently became his wife. On the occasion of his marriage to her, Susa no wo composed the following verses:

Eventually he entered the Nether Land.

It cannot be necessary to point out the resemblance of this story to that of Perseus and Andromeda, of which there are so many variants current throughout the world.