are
given the interesting traditions concerning his expedition to the East,
and his encounters with the Ainos, who inhabited the northern part of the
island. That there was a basis of fact to these traditions there cannot be
a doubt. Yet the events have such an air of fable and poetry that it is
impossible to separate the fact from the legend. As we have done in
previous instances, we give the stories in their essential entirety,
leaving to scholars hereafter the task of winnowing the grains of fact out
of the chaff which the imagination of the race has left for us.

Prince Yamato-dake took on his expedition to the East the Prince
Mi-suki-tomo-mimi-take. The emperor gave him these instructions: "Subdue
and pacify the savage deities, and likewise the unsubmissive people of the
twelve roads(57) of the East."

Prince Yamato-dake first visited the temple of the Sun Goddess in Ise,
where he worshipped at the shrine of his great ancestress. He must have
had a presentiment that he never would return alive from this expedition.
His aunt Yamato-hime,(58) who was the priestess of this temple, gave him
on his departure the sword(59) which the Impetuous-Male-Deity discovered
in the tail of the snake which he slew in Izumo. She also gave him a bag
which he was not to open until he found himself in pressing difficulty.

He came to the land of Owari, and appears there to have been smitten by
the charms of the Princess Miyazu. And, planning to wed her on his way
back, he plighted to her his troth and went on. Then he came to the
province of Sagami, where he met the chief of the land. But he deceived
him and said that in the midst of a vast moor there is a lagoon where
lives a deity. Yamato-dake went over the moor to find the deity. Whereupon
the chief set fire to the grass, expecting to see him consumed. But
Yamato-dake seeing his danger, and being assured that the time of pressing
difficulty had come, opened the bag which his aunt, Yamato-hime, had given
him. There he found a fire drill,(60) with which a fire could be struck.
He cut away the grass around him with the sword which had been given him,
and then set fire to the moor. When he was safe from the fire he sought
out and slew the traitorous chief and all the chiefs who were associated
with him.

From Sagami he undertook to cross in a boat the waters of Yedo bay to
Kazusa opposite. But the sea was rough and they were on the point of being
overwhelmed and drowned. Then his wif