202 



who, when his ship was tossed about by wind and waves on its 

 way from Musashi to Kazusa province, was saved by his talented 

 concubine Ototo Tashibana hime, who jumped into the sea in 

 order to sacrifice herself on behalf of the Prince to the Dragon- 

 god, and thus appeased the turbulent waves '. This legend is 

 borrowed from the Nihongi'^, but there we read only about 

 Watatsumi no kami ', the "God of the Sea" {*^|$). 



§ 4. The dragon-hole in the Gion shrine. 



A dragon's hole in a Shinto temple is mentioned by the Zoku 

 kojidan^. This hole was said to be in the hoden ("treasure-hall", 

 where the shintai or "god-bodies" of the gods are , preserved) of 

 the. Gion shrine at Kyoto. In 1221, when the temple was destroyed 

 by fire, Hashimoto, the Buddhist head-abbot (zasu) of Hieizan, 

 tried to measure the depth of the hole, but even at a depth of 

 fifty jo (five hundred shabu) the bottom was not yet reached. 



§ 5. The dragon-snake offered by the Sea-god to the Sada shrine. 



The Shokoku rijindan^ says the following: "In the Shinto 

 temple of Sada, in Akika district, Izumo province, worship is 

 performed in several ways. Between .the eleventh and the fifteenth 

 day of the tenth month there comes from the open sea a small 

 snake, about one shaku long, floating on the waves and approaching 

 the shore. It is a beautiful, gold-coloured animal, called dragon- 

 snake (^fi'fe, ryuja). The priest of the shrine, after having 

 purified himself, goes to the beach and awaits the snake, which 

 he carries, coiled up upon some seaweeds, to the temple. . It is' a 

 present from the Sea-god to the shrine". 



§ 6. A dragon-snake as a tree-sprite on Koya san. 



Another tale in the same work ^ refers to a serpent-shaped 

 tree-sprite, the spirit of a willow zdXlQdi ja-yanagi, il'fef^p, or 

 " snake- willow ", on Koya san. This was a big serpent or dragon, 



1 Ch. XLIV. p. 1157. 2 Ch. VII, K-T. K. Vol, I, p. 146. 



3 Of. above, Book II, Chap. I, § 3, p. 137. 



^ ^B "n ^^ wv ' pi'ol'^bly written at the end of the thirteenth or in the be- 

 ginning of the fourteenth century; Ch. IV, Gunsho ruijii, nr 487, Vol. XVII, p. 681. 



5 ^ H M A ^' written in 1746 by Kikuoka Senryo, ^ |Sj "^i^ ^ ; 

 Ch. I, Zoku Teikoka Bunko, Vol. XX, p. 879. 



6 Ch. I, p. 891. 



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