Page:Shinto, the Way of the Gods - Aston - 1905.djvu/285

Rh '' and Kami mi-musubi, the High-Heaven divine ancestors, bestowed upon the Sovran Grandchild this sub-celestial Great-eight-island country, Ama no hohi, the remote divine ancestor of the Omi of Idzumo, was sent by them to view the condition of the land. Forcing his way through the eight-fold clouds of Heaven, soaring across the sky, soaring over the earth, he surveyed the Under-Heaven on all sides, and made report that the Fair-Ear-Land of the Rich-Reed-Plain was a savage land where there were Gods who in the daytime swarmed like flies in the fifth month, and at night shone like fire pots, and where the rocks, trees, and blue water foam had power of speech. However, he promised that it should be subdued so that the Sovran Grandchild might rule it serenely as a peaceful land. Therefore his son Ame-hina-dori, and with him Futsunushi were sent down from Heaven. They drove out and subdued the savage deities, and persuaded the Great God who made the Land to divide off the visible outward things of the Great-eight-island Country.' ''

"Then Ohonamochi said: 'In the land to be governed by the Sovran Grandchild and called Great Yamato I will make my own gentle spirit (nigi-tama) to be attached to an eight-hand mirror, and enshrined in Miha, under the title of Yamato no Oho-mono-nushi kushi-mika-tama no mikoto (great-thing-master-wondrous-awful-spirit), the spirit of my son Ajisuki-taka-hikone to be enshrined at Kamo in Katsuraki, that of Kotoshironushi at Unade, and that of Kayanarumi at Asuka, dedicating them to dwell there divinely as near guardian deities of the Sovran Grandchild.' He then went to rest in the shrine of fertile Kitsuki. Thereupon the Sovran dear divine ancestor and ancestress (of the Mikado?)