Episode 189 – Twilight of the Trickster God

Episode 189 Show Notes

Source: Shinto Mythology

This week on MYTH, we’ll get the rest of the story from one of our early trickster gods. You’ll discover that beards are bad for the environment, that you should always be on the lookout for hidden swords, and that you really don’t want to know where your food comes from. Then, in Gods and Monsters, the Princess of the Fireflies will send her many suitors on a daring and deadly quest. This is the Myths Your Teacher Hated podcast, where I tell the stories of cultures from around the world in all of their original, bloody, uncensored glory. Modern tellings of these stories have become dry and dusty, but I’ll be trying to breathe new life into them. This is Episode 189, “Twilight of the Trickster God”. As always, this episode is not safe for work.
This story is told in both the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki, both from the early 8th century CE. I’ll be using both texts, since each contains some parts that the other lacks. We actually met the Shinto trickster god Susanoo and his big sister Amaterasu the sun goddess way, way back in Episode 37. The source I was using back then actually covered this story very, very briefly but it’s been long enough now that I want to cover Susanoo’s mischief in more detail.
First, the very brief version of what led up to this story. Susanoo and his older sister Amaterasu are both children of the creator deity Izanagi as is Tsukuyomi, the moon god. His wife, Izanami had died and so he had done the romantic thing and gone into the underworld to try and rescue her. Unfortunately, it went about as well as that ever does in any mythology, and he failed. To purify himself after this failed adventure, Isanagi bathed himself. When he washed his left eye, Amaterasu was born. Tsukuyomi arrived after his father washed his right eye. And mischievous Susanoo came into existence when his father washed his nose. With his older brother and sister in charge of the day and the night respectively, Susanoo was left to rule over the seas.
Ocean deities are often hot-tempered and mercurial and so it was with this young god. He understandably missed his mother, being the baby of the three, and so Susanoo wailed at the top of his baby god lungs day and night. He kept up this incessant howling until his beard grew out, which caused the mountains to wither and the rivers to dry up. As punishment for this inadvertent devastation, Izanagi banished his son.
Before he leaves, Susanoo ascends to say goodbye to his sister Amaterasu. She is suspicious of her brother’s motives, so she went out to meet him dressed in male clothing and armor. Her younger brother proposes trial by pledge to prove his sincerity, which Amaterasu accepts. Each chewed up and spat out an object belonging to the other sibling. Amaterasu broke Susanoo’s totsuka no tsurugi, his ten-span sword, and spat them out into three goddesses: Takiribime, Ichikishimahime, and Tagitsuhime. In response, Susanoo took the strings of magatama beads (curved, comma-shaped decorations) that she had woven through her hair and entwined around her wrists. He chewed the beads and spat out five gods: Ame-no-Oshihomimi, Ame-no-Hohi, Amatsuhikone, Ikutsuhikone, and Kumano-no-Kusubi.
In a switcheroo that feels an awful lot like cheating, Amaterasu declares that she won the trial since the five gods were born of her items and thus belong to her. Susanoo disagreed, declaring that he had created more deities out of the trial and so victory should be his (and to be fair, he’s right). Winning had proven the purity of his intentions, but that was in the past. Having been thus cheated and insulted, Susanoo raged with victory, wreaking havoc on Amaterasu’s rice fields, shitting in her palace, and flaying her beloved heavenly piebald horse ame-no-fuchikoma. The corpse of the poor horse was hurled into his sister’s loom, killing one of her weaving maidens in the process. Angry and scared, Amaterasu hides away inside the Ama-no-Iwato, the Heavenly Rock Cave, plunging the earth into total darkness without the light of the sun. Which is, you know, fucking bad. The other gods eventually persuade her to come back out, but everyone is furious with Susanoo for reacting so poorly and re-emphasize that he is banished by tossing his ass out of Takamagahara, the Plain of High Heaven.
As if exile wasn’t enough, a fine of one thousand tables of offerings was levied on Susanoo as restitution for everything he had destroyed in his well-earned anger. They also plucked out all of his hair, and I do mean all of it so that any who saw him would know of his shame. A different version says that instead of pulling out all of his hair, they instead pulled out all of his fingernails and toenails, which is pretty gruesome. Whichever punishment it was, he was definitely tossed out of heaven afterwards. For his additional crimes, he was also forbidden to dwell in the central reed plains of the mortal realm and was instead consigned to the nether lands of the underworld, known as Yomi. It sounds like Susanoo wasn’t super keen on his new address because the story states that the other gods had to physically drive him down to hell.
He hadn’t been expecting to go on a trip and so he had no supplies. It didn’t take long for him to become hungry. Rather than doing any of the typical things you might expect someone to do in this situation, Susanoo decided to take a divine shortcut – he went to see a food goddess. If you’ve got that kind of connection, it makes sense. Her name was Ogetsuhime-no-kami and she was happy to oblige Susanoo’s request. Maybe she hadn’t heard of his desecrating shit and murder rampage or maybe she was just kind. She thus reached into her mouth, her nose, and her asshole to pull out the requested food. No, really. The literal translation is ‘took various viands out of her nose, her mouth, and her rectum.’
Susanoo had not been expecting her to produce food that way. To be fair, who the fuck expects someone to pull food out of their literal ass and offer it to you? He thought that she was polluting the food before offering it to him, perhaps deliberately, and his famous temper flared up again. Enraged at her for doing what he had asked, he murdered Ogetsuhime-no-kami. From her corpse sprung a variety of things that became staples of Japanese life: silkworms from her skull, rice seeds from her eyes, millet from her ears, red beans from her nose, wheat from her vagina, and soy beans from her asshole. Which makes eating a veggie burger somehow sexual and filthy in a way I was not prepared for.
He descended from the heavens and went to the headwaters of the River Hii in the province of Idzumo in southern Japan. As he neared, he heard the sound of weeping coming from somewhere nearby. Curious, Susanoo went in search of whomever was crying, which turned out to be not one but two people. An old man and an old woman were hunched over a young girl and lamenting loudly and stroking her as if to comfort her. “I couldn’t help but hear the sound of your sorrow and wanted to see if there was anything I could do. Who are you and what happened?”
The old man looked up in surprise, so absorbed in his grief that he hadn’t noticed Susanoo’s approach. “I am Ashi-nadzuchi, an earthly deity. This is my wife Te-nadzuchi and our daughter Kushi-nada-hime. We once had eight children, all daughters, who we loved dearly. Alas, we are cursed to have watched each of them be devoured by an eight-forked serpent one each year at the same time. And now the time is approaching once again and that dread serpent will murder our last daughter. We’ve tried everything to avoid this fate, but there is nothing she can do to escape. Death is inevitable – so you can understand why we’re grieving, I hope.”
Susanoo thought for a moment. “I have an idea. How about you give Kushi-nada-hime to me? She is lost to you regardless, but I might be able to save her life.” The couple looked at each other, managing to have an entire conversation in a single glance as people who’ve been together for many years sometimes can. “I don’t know what you have in mind, but it has to be better than being eaten alive by a monstrous snake.” There is no indication that the daughter, who is the one most directly affected by this whole thing, is consulted at all but I have to imagine that she’s on board as well. “
Susanoo held out his hand. As Kushi-nada-hime took it, she was changed into a many-toothed ornamental comb which the god immediately secured in his hair. And that was just step one. Susanoo had Ashi-nadzuchi and Te-nadzuchi brew eight-fold sake and obtain eight large cabinets. Into each, he had them place a large tub filled with the fresh sake. Once all was in readiness, Susanoo sat down to await the coming of the eight-forked serpent. If you’re noticing a lot of repetition of the number eight, that’s because it’s a sacred number in Japanese culture. It’ll keep coming up. And if you’re seeing parallels to the amazing game Okami, this is where that story comes from.
Anyway, the serpent appeared at precisely the time that the elderly couple had said it would, clearly searching for its tender morsel of human sacrifice. The snake was monstrously huge with an eight-forked head and an eight-forked tail, which is a fancy way of saying that it had eight heads and eight tails, like a hydra but somehow worse. Its eyes glowed the deep red of a winter cherry; it was so massive that firs and cypress trees grew along its back. As it slithered along, its massive body stretched across eight hills and eight valleys.
It arrived at its presumed lunch reservation to find eight vats of sake waiting for it. The great serpent, known as Yamata no Orochi or the eight-forked serpent, was a fan of the powerful spirit but didn’t often have it. Discovering that there was enough for each head to have its own giant-sized sake cup, all eight heads promptly drank their portion. Yamata no Orochi might have eight heads, but it only had one stomach and so the enormous quantity of sake hit the snake like a freight train. It was immediately shit-faced and slithered wobbly into a crooked coil for a little nappy nap.
Susanoo waited for the drunk snake to start snoring sibilantly before standing. He drew the totsuka-no-tsurugi he wore (a sword ten hand breadths long rather than a specific named sword) and raised it high. Given that Amaterasu chewed up his last ten-span sword in their encounter, I have to assume this is a new one. Anyway, Susanoo proceeded to hack the passed out Yamata no Orochi into tiny, bloody pieces. He started by decapitating the eight heads and then moved along the body to the eight tails. The god was surprised when, as his sword bit into said tails, he heard a metallic ringing and felt a shock in his sword arm. Withdrawing the ten-span sword, Susanoo saw that the blade was notched, which shouldn’t have happened from just flesh and bone.
Curious, the deity sliced open the tail lengthwise and peeled the muscle apart to peer inside. Both surprised and not at all surprised, he found a sword inside which would later be known as Kusa-nagi no tsurugi or the grass-cutting sword. In at least one version, the sword was originally called Ama no Mura-kumo no tsurugi or the sword of the gathering clouds of heaven, possibly so named because of the clouds that always gathered above Yamata no Orochi. The name was changed by Imperial Prince Yamato-dake, a legendary romantic hero whose story we’ll have to cover another time.
This was clearly a divine sword, and having been so recently cast out of the heavens, Susanoo didn’t feel that it should belong to him. He thus offered it up to Amaterasu as an apology for shitting under her chair and killing her servant. It was the least he could do. Seriously. Giving his sister a cool sword he found by accident is literally the absolute least he could do. This sword is said to be held to this day at the Isonokami Shrine in Nara Prefecture, one of the oldest surviving Shinto shrines but no one other than the priests are allowed to see it.
Having thus saved the young goddess, Susanoo and Kushinada-hime were married. He was still theoretically on his way into exile but he delayed his trip further to look for a place to celebrate his marriage. After some searching, he came to a place named Suga – a name which means pure or fresh – in the Izumo Province. It wasn’t named that at the time though. Susanoo felt calm and at ease when he came to this wild place, saying ‘my heart is refreshed.’ He built his palace there and named the area Suga after how it made him feel. He wrote a poem to commemorate the event and then he and his wife got busy, soon giving birth to a son named Oho-na-much-no-kama (Great Name Possessor) or possibly a daughter named Ina-gami Furu-kushi-nada-hime (True-hair-touch Wondrous-Inada-princess).
In a different version, Susanoo met the goddess Inada-hime at the headwaters of the River Hii, though this seems to occur slightly before his encounter with Kushinada-hime. She was the daughter of Susa-no-yatsu-mimi, or Master of the Shrine of Inada. Susanoo and Inada-hime also got married and had a child named Suga-no-yu-yama-nushi-no-kami Mitsu-na-saro-hiko-yama-shino and I feel so very bad for that child. His name translates roughly to Master of the Hot Springs of Suga Three-Named Monkey Prince Mountain Bamboo Grass though of course other versions give different names.
He was still supposed to move on to the underworld, so Susanoo put Kushinada-hime’s father Ashi-nadzuchi and mother Te-nadzuchi in charge as stewards and granted them the title Inada-no-Miyanushi-Suga-no-Yatsumimi-no-Kami. It’s a real mouthful that translates to Master of the Palace of Inada, the eight-eared deity of Suga. Regardless of exactly who he was married to, how many kids he had, or what they were named, he still had to descend to Yomi but didn’t want to leave his child or children without support and riches to eventually rule over.
Thus, Susanoo plucked out the hairs of his beard and scattered them across the land. Where these fell, cryptomeria, the Japanese cedar tree, sprouted. He then plucked out his chest hairs and likewise scattered them, creating Thuyas trees, a type of pine. His eyebrows became camphor trees. The spruces and camphor trees he decreed would be used to build fine boats from then on; the Thuya trees would be used to build Shinto shrines. All of that is all well and good, but you can’t eat temples so he also planted an abundance of food, eighty varieties in all.
Having thus secured a future for his children, Susanoo finally descended into the underworld, leaving the mortal realm to his children and to humanity. On the plus side, some versions say that instead of Yomi, he actually went to Ne-no-Kuni, or the land of the roots. It’s unclear how this differs from Yomi, though some analyses have indicated that Yomi is the land of the dead while Ne-no-Kuni is more associated with a potential for rebirth. Since Susanoo would bring rains with him his descent may have been meant to link to the harvest and the rains needed for the symbolic burial and rebirth of seeds into crops at harvest time. Either way, the good news is that the place of roots is also where his dead mother resides, so he finally is able to spend time with her.
And so with Susanoo’s journey complete, it’s time for Gods and Monsters. This is a segment where I get into a little more detail about one of the gods or monsters from this week’s pantheon that was not discussed in the main story. This week’s romantic lead is the Princess of the Fireflies.
This story comes from Japanese Myths and Legends, collected by J. K. Jackson in 2022. Our tale begins in Fukui Castle in Echizen, a city in Fukui Prefecture in central Japan. Or, more accurately, in the moats outside the castle, on the southern side, which was the sunniest part of the castle grounds. The waters of the moat had long ago drained and become so shallow that lotus lilies grew throughout the intended fortification. Deep in the heart of one of the largest of these delicate pink flowers lived Hi-o, the king of the fireflies. Despite the fact that fireflies lay hundreds of eggs each summer, King Hi-o had only a single daughter, Hotaru-hime (with hime being an honorific meaning princess, so I’ll either use it or princess to describe her).
Since the king had only a single child, which was an especially precarious position for an insect king, the princess was kept inside the safety of the flower palace for her entire childhood. She never even ventured to the edges of the petals except to see her father off as he flew away on whatever royal business a king of the fireflies has. Being a dutiful princess, she didn’t complain about these restrictions though she certainly chafed under them. When she finally came of age, which in fireflies is when her fire first kindled, her light shone throughout the flower, beautiful and bright, until its light was like a lamp housed in a coral lamp.
Her light grew brighter and brighter each night until it finally settled into a mellow, mature gold. Her father was very pleased. “Now that you are of age, my daughter, you may fly abroad with me sometimes to see the world and learn the art of ruling. When the proper suitor comes along, you may marry whomever pleases you.” And so Hotaru-hime flew forth, weaving amongst the lilies of the moat out to the rich rice fields and beyond to the indigo meadows. It was a brave new world for her to explore and she reveled in her newfound freedom.
Such freedom comes with costs unfortunately and for an eligible princess, that meant a horde of suitors every time she left the lotus palace. It’s hard to hide your presence when your ass is literally a flashing neon sign saying where you are. Despite all of the eligible bachelors swarming around her, Princess Hotaru was aloof to their attentions having no real interest in marrying so soon. She was polite to everyone though careful to encourage none of them. Alas, men being men, there were still those who called her a flirt and a tease.
Shockingly, the firefly girl’s mother was alive and well and so the princess went to speak with the queen. “Mom, it seems like I’ve met every eligible bug in the kingdom but I don’t want to marry any of them. None of them get the hint that I’m not interested though and it’s getting really annoying so tonight I’m doing something different. I’m staying in and inviting any that truly love me to come and see me, but warning them that they absolutely shouldn’t do it. I intend to lay an impossible task on them and only the one who succeeds will have me as his bride. I don’t want any bug who loves his life more than me.” Which is kind of toxic as a philosophy, but I don’t begrudge her the tried and true folklore marriage quest. Everyone will have full foreknowledge of the risks involved and have no obligation to participate. They can bow out at literally any moment.
Her mother thought this a wise way to resolve this problem and so she helped her daughter dress in her most resplendent robes and sat her on the lotus throne. Their bodyguards were ordered to keep any potential suitors at a respectful distance to prevent some light-blind asshole from hurting the princess or doing something foolish like trying to kidnap her. The word went out and, as twilight began to fall, a golden beetle arrived. He landed on the flower’s stamen and made a deep, respectful bow. “I am Lord Green-Gold and I have come to offer my house, my fortune, and my love to Hotaru-hime.” “You have heard the terms being offered, Lord Green-Gold?” He nodded. “I have indeed, princess. I accept the risk of whatever task you assign to prove my worth.” “Then go forth and fetch me fire. Succeed, and I will be your bride.” The beetle bowed again and, with a whir of his wings, he was gone.
No sooner had Lord Green-Gold left than another took his place, this bug as black as lamp-smoke with a carapace as shiny as a mirror. He too professed his passion, accepted the terms, and flew off to fetch fire. After him came a scarlet dragonfly who was hoping to dazzle the princess with his spectacular colors and so convince her to marry him without need for some silly quest. “I decline your offer sir, but you have the same chance as the others. Bring me blazing fire, and I shall be your bride.”
More and more suitors continued to file in one after another. Each heard the princess’ offer and each accepted, flying off to try and complete her task. There were soon enough of them gathered to cover every petal of the lotus. One by one, they made their plea each in his own way. They came humbly and swaggering, shyly and boldly, flattering her light or boasting of their own mighty deeds. Some came with tears in their multifaceted eyes and others came with an instrument in hand and a song on whatever they had instead of lips. Each offered his rank and his fortune, such as it might be, vowed constancy and swore to complete her simple task. Of course, simple is not the same as easy.
Fire can be dangerous and unpredictable enough on its own but, for insects, it carries a lot more danger of the bug zapper variety. Regardless, each of the insect suitors thought that they had the secret plan for obtaining fire and returning safely that would make them the princess’ new husband. Each soared off in different directions to follow their different secret schemes. The beetle buzzed over to a nearby house where light could be seen glimmering through the paper windows. So full of the heady brew of success and focused on the flickering flames was he that he never saw the loose nail that skewered his head as he flew right into it.
The glistening black bug went instead to the room of a poor student who was reading by lamplight. Being, as I said, very poor, his lamp was nothing more than a shallow earthenware dish filled with cheap oil and a makeshift wick of pith. The insect knew nothing of lamps and so he landed blithely inside the dish to walk over to the fire. His body was soon coated in the viscous oil, dragging him down beneath to drown. In a different nearby home, a thrifty housewife was busy mending her family’s garments by candlelight. “Nan jaro?” she asked as a whooshing, popping noise came from nearby. “What’s that?” Smoldering on the table beside it, she found the charred corpse of a dragonfly, his gossamer wings burned away completely.
The clever but cautious hawk moth flitted around and around a lamp hung outside the door of a house, torn between fear of the flames and his mad love for Hotaru-hime. He came neared and nearer each time, mesmerized by the ethereal beauty of the fire but also aware of the heat. “Come on buddy, it’s now or never. Princess or death!” he cried, pumping himself up. He charged towards the flame to try and scoop it up, but his wings shriveled in the heat as he neared and he fell to the ground and died in slow agony. The ugly clothes moth, who had watched this gruesome ordeal from a nearby tree, tutted condescendingly. “What a fool he was, to be sure, flying straight at the fire like that. Everyone knows you have to surprise your prey. I’ll attack it from inside the candle. The flames will never even see me coming!” And so he climbed into the hollow paper wick of the lamp. He could see the flame coming closer while his wings stayed nice and un-roasted. He chortled to himself in victory as he neared the very top of the wick. His merriment died along with the poor moth as a man pinched the wick to douse the flames, killing the candlelight and the moth both.
Indeed, none of the bold suitors returned to Hotaru-hime with the required offering of flame. Most perished in the attempt, though hopefully at least a few realized how absurdly dangerous it was and simply went back to their lives. They died in their droves, scorched by the enormous braziers on the coast or crashing in a blaze of glory beside the eight foot tall candles of the Buddhist temples. Some burned by surprise when landing on smoldering incense sticks or were choked to death in the pungent smoke. Some danced themselves to death, circling around the flickering lanterns of the Shinto shrines or in the sepulchral silence of the graveyards. One found itself turned to ash in a cremation furnace. Another was swatted out of the air for attacking the candle at the center of a great feast. Another chased the sparks soaring out of a chimney and was swallowed out of the air by a bird it hadn’t noticed in its single-minded obsession. Some escaped with only singed feelers, burned bodies, or scorched wings, but most lay blackened and dead by sunrise.
As the priests came in the morning to trim the wicks, they saw the countless dead bugs lying everywhere. The maids who came to sweep them up laughed as they worked. “Princess Hotaru must have had a damned orgy last night. So many lovers of the firefly princess!” And still the red carnage wasn’t over. Some of the bugs figured that their dead rivals had made the mistake of attacking the fire in its natural habitat – the dark. One tried to snatch green fire from the shadows of a bush that turned out to be the glowing eyes of a hungry cat. A carrion beetle wandered out to the sea shore where he found brightly shining fish scales that burned like fire in the dawn’s light. He was eaten by the owner of those scales when he got too close.
The great stag beetle flew up a mountainside. The story says that he found glowing wood like fire in the remains of a rotted out stump, but I don’t understand at all what he’s supposed to have found. He was one of the lucky ones, though. He didn’t die, he just found that, since it was daylight by the time he returned to the lotus castle, the apparent fire in the old wood had long since gone out. Do with that what you will.
In the aftermath of this one great night of insect immolation and carnage, a day of mourning was held. There were so many funerals for the small and the great scattered all over the firefly kingdom for the various fallen. It caused such a ruckus in fact that on the distant north side of the moat, it was noticed by none other than Hi-maro, Prince of the Fireflies. He asked one of his servants what was going on and was informed of the incredible beauty of Hotaru-hime and of the glorious quest she had set as price for her hand. He fell in love with her immediately despite never having even seen this insect princess before.
Since the prince had in fact just succeeded his aged father to the throne (making him king of the fireflies, despite the title given by the story), he decided that joining the two firefly kingdoms in matrimony would be just the thing to start off his new reign. Being a bug of proper upbringing, he sent his chamberlain to speak with Hotaru-hime’s father about marrying his daughter, as proper etiquette demanded. The king agreed to this very fine proposal on one condition – he must come in person bearing the required gift of fire that his daughter had set. He would not supersede her wish in the matter of her heart and her hand.
The prince considered this and, after a moment’s thought, agreed to the terms. For he had an ace up his sleeve. Or, more accurately, up his ass. He too was a firefly and so he also carried the bright flash of insect fire on his behind, every bit as bright and glorious as the princess’ was said to be. And so the prince assembled his glittering battalions in an honor guard and flew to the lotus palace. The fire of the prince and his assembled warriors lit up the darkened palace with a flood of golden light. Yet such was the beauty of Hitaro-hime that her glow was not paled by this blazing glory but added its own brilliance to it. The visit ended with the prince and princess meeting and falling instantly and deeply in love. A date was set and, on that night, the glittering battalions of the north met a white lotus palanquin of the south as the two were wed.
Many generations have passed since the days of Hitaro-hime and Hi-maro, but it is still the custom of firefly princesses to require their lovers to bring flashing fire if they wish to win her hand. It is the only way for the fair princesses to get a moment’s rest without the entire male population of the insect kingdom trying to gain their attention and favor. Each time, many base-born insects set out in a vain quest to return with fire and perish in the attempt. It is a reflection of the very beauty of the devastating and cruel princess who sets this deadly task that she knows most are doomed to fail in. This is why, to this day, you constantly see countless different insects flying into the flames or drowning in oil. It is also why young ladies were said to capture fireflies in the summer: so they could watch this act of war for passionate insect love in the hopes that their own human suitors might dare as much, risking fire and flame for their hands.
That’s it for this episode of Myths Your Teacher Hated. Keep up with new episodes on our Facebook page, on iTunes, on TuneIn, on Vurbl, and on Spotify, or you can follow us on Instagram as MythsYourTeacherHatedPod, on Tumblr as MythsYourTeacherHated, and on Bluesky as MythsPodcast. You can also find news and episodes on our website at myths your teacher hated dot com. If you have any questions, any gods or monsters you’d want to learn about, or any ideas for future stories that you’d like to hear, feel free to drop me a line. I’m trying to pull as much material from as many different cultures as possible, but there are all sorts of stories I’ve never heard, so suggestions are appreciated. And to those who have already dropped some stories for me, don’t worry – they’re on the list. The theme music is by Tiny Cheese Puff.
Next time, we’ll be heading back to Asgard to catch up with Thor and Loki as part of a major milestone. You’ll see that it pays to know where your symbolic penis is, that Freyja has no patience for Thor’s bullshit, and that sometimes Loki isn’t to blame (but he’s still gonna make it worse). Then, in Gods and Monsters, Loki’s kids are going to become a real problem for the gods of Asgard. That’s all for now. Thanks for listening.