28 Mr. J. O. Pelton on 
pupil had learned the secret, and in his time became one of the 
most famous of the swordsmiths of Japan. 
The Japanese implicitly believed that the spirit of the work- 
man entered into the steel, enduing the blade with certain charac- 
teristics peculiar to its maker. I quote from an admirable 
article by Sir Edwin Arnold :— 
“They say that the difference between the swords of Masa- 
mune and Muramasa, two famous craftsmen, was due to their 
singing. A Masamune blade brought victory and luck every- 
where. A Muramasa sword was always leading its owner into 
quarrels, though it carried him through them well, and it would 
cause accidents and cut the fingers of friendly folks inspecting 
it, being never willing to go back to its seabbard without drinking 
blood. The real reason was, so runs the legend, that Muramasa 
while he sat at his work in the forge was ever singing a song 
which had the chorus of ‘tenka tairan, tenka tairan,’ which 
means ‘trouble in the world, trouble in the world,’ whereas 
Masamune, the gentle and lucky swordsmith, always chanted 
while he worked, ‘tenka taihei, taihei,’ which signifies, ‘ peace 
be on earth, peace!’ Japanese people of the old days firmly 
believed that both the kindly words and the unkindly got some- 
how welded into the very spirit of the steel, so that Masamune’s 
blades prevented quarrels or brought to their wielders a quick 
victory, while Muramasa’s had in them a lurking instinct for 
doing mischief, a sort of itch to hurt and wound. All sorts of 
tales were told to illustrate this. There was a splendid sword 
of Muramasa’s which had killed by hara kiri (i.e. legal suicide) 
four of its possessors in succession. Once, too, when the Shogun 
Iyeyasu was handling a spearhead embedded in the helmet of one 
of his warriors, the point wounded his august hand. ‘See quickly,’ 
he said, ‘ what is the mark upon the accursed iron; it must be 
Muramasa’s.’ Anj when they came to look at the maker’s name 
it was indeed a spearhead from the grim sword-maker’s who had 
chanted the thirst for blood into his yari and katana.” 
It is stated that to sharpen a fine Japanese blade required no 
less than fifty days’ work, and, simple as the operation may seem, 
it can only be done in Japan. ‘I look upon a well-finished 
Japanese blade,’ writes Mr. Gilbertson, ‘‘as a marvel of 
mechanical skill and perfect workmanship.” The work is done 
on a peculiar sort of stone, not on a wheel. Afterwards the 
blade is finished on a polishing stone dressed with oil, and finally 
burnished. The export of the stones required for these processes 
is prohibited. 
The forging of a sword was accompanied by a ceremonial 
ritual which partook almost of a religious character. The smith 
must lead a more or less religious life, abstaining from excesses 
of every kind. He clad himself in his ceremonial dress, and 
