Page:Shinto, the Way of the Gods - Aston - 1905.djvu/123

Rh ing herself from certain suspicions which her husband had entertained of her fidelity. "If," said she, "the children are really the offspring of the Heavenly Grandchild, the fire cannot harm them." The children and their mother came forth unhurt, and were thereupon recognized by Ninigi as his true offspring and wife.

The "doorless shed" here mentioned, is a "parturition house." It was the custom in ancient Japan for women, when the time drew near for their delivery, to retire to a shed specially constructed to receive them, so that contamination to the dwelling-house might be avoided. This was still the practice in the island of Hachijō in 1878, and even in Japan no longer than a century ago.

The burning of the parturition house represents the ordeal by fire, which, with the ordeal by boiling water or mud, is well known in Japan.

Ho no Susori and Hohodemi.—The story concerns itself no further with the youngest of these three children. Of the others, the elder, named Ho no Susori, became a fisherman, and the younger, Hohodemi, a hunter.

Ho no Susori once proposed to his brother to exchange their respective callings. Hohodemi accordingly gave over to his elder brother his bow and arrows and received a fish-hook in return. But neither of them profited by the exchange, so Ho no Susori gave back to his brother the bow and arrows and demanded from him the fish-hook.

Hohodemi, however, had in the meantime lost it in the sea. He took his sword and forged from it a number of new fish-hooks which he piled up in a winnowing tray and offered to his brother by way of compensation. But the latter would have none but his own, and demanded it so vehemently of Hohodemi as to grieve him bitterly. Hohodemi went down to the sea-shore and stood there lamenting, when there appeared to him the Old Man of the Sea, by