150 



§ 3. Carriage of a ghost drawn through the air by eight dragons. 



In connection with the same Emperor a third tale in the 

 Taiheiki ' may be mentioned. Omori Morinaga, who had conquered 

 Godaigo's loyal general, KusunoM Masashige (1336), one evening 

 saw the latter's ghost appearing in the garden and trying to 

 deprive him of his sword. He questioned the spirit by whom 

 he was accompanied, whereupon Masashige answered that the 

 Emperor Godaigo, that Emperor's son Prince Morinaga (killed at 

 Kamakura in 1335) and Nitta Toshisada had come with him. 

 Omori lighted a torch and, looking upwards, discovered in a big 

 cloud twenty demons carrying on their shoulders the Imperial 

 sedan-chair; then followed the Prince in a carriage drawn hy 

 eight dragons ^, and Toshisada rode in front with more than 

 three thousand horsemen. This reminds us of a sentence in the 

 Gempei seisuiki ', a quotation from the Ba-iku-kyo *, which says 

 that "in heaven a horse is made into a dragon and among men 

 a dragon is made into a horse" *. The number eight is stereo- 

 typical in these legends about dragons ridden by kings or gods, 

 or drawing their carriages. So we read about a Buddhistic god 

 with twelve faces and forty two arms brandishing swords and 

 lances, and riding eight dragons in the air amidst rain and wind '^. 



§ 4. A dragon appears as a good omen. 



The Kanden jihitsu ' describes a dragon which was seen under 

 a bridge near Unawa village, Harima province, at the foot of 

 Mount Shiko. It was seven shaku long, had one horn, hands 

 and feet, and its body had the colour of leaves of a tree tinged 

 with a golden lustre. It was a beautiful animal, exactly like the 

 red dragons on pictures. When the villagers descended from the 



1 Ch. XXIII, p. 3. 



3 Ch. XXXVII, p. 982. 



6 See below, Ch. IV, Taiheiki, Ch. XII, p. 96. 



' Itl BB ^ ^f ' ■""'i^*'^" '^y ^^^ sa.m& author who wrote the Kanden kohitsu, 



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