“Don’t look!” he ordered her sharply. “Anyone who looks at my father will be blinded. Don’t open your eyes until I tell you.”
Startled, Saya clapped both hands over her eyes, but she could still feel light burning gold and black against her eyelids. It had been a near thing.
From above them flowed a voice that moved the heart like the strum of a bass string.
“Dragon Child, did you fulfill your task and summon the Goddess of the netherworld?”
“No,” Chihaya answered weakly. “She wouldn’t come.”
“I saw you descend into the Land of the Dead.” The God’s voice was tinged with displeasure. “For what purpose, then, did you go? And why have you returned alone?”
Saya suddenly stepped forward, and with both eyes still covered addressed the God of Light.
“O my beloved.”
Chihaya had put a hand on her shoulder to restrain her but withdrew it hastily. Saya’s body was as rigid as stone, and she spoke in a trance. Moreover, the words she uttered were not her own.
“The girl who stands before you is unique—she has returned from the Land of the Dead. For your sake I have twice broken the sacred rules of the netherworld: once when I allowed your son to enter the Land of the Dead, and once when I allowed my daughter to return to the Land of the Living. In this way I have permitted myself the smallest measure of selfishness—to borrow this girl’s body and allow myself to meet you for a fleeting moment.”
“O my beloved wife.” His voice trembled slightly. “A fleeting moment cannot suffice. I have come now like this to take your hand once more. Show yourself in your willowy form, with your long black hair flowing.”
The Goddess of Darkness replied sadly, “Do you still not understand? My body has long since crumbled into dust, as fate decreed. It was destined to be thus when earth and heaven were sundered.”
“And that’s precisely why we must turn back time. Let’s return earth and heaven to the original sea of chaos and, side by side, go back to that time. I need you.”
The Goddess sighed faintly. “You sent me the Sword. Why did you attempt such a dangerous thing?”
“I’ve never once forgotten you. Though I knew that you despised me.”
The Goddess exclaimed in surprise, “But it was you who despised me! After you cut yourself off from me, you hated even my children who lived upon the earth.”
“Because you preferred to remain within that dark pit rather than be by my side.”
“My beloved husband,” the Goddess said, deeply touched, “Toyoashihara moves with the seasons. She needs a mother—someone to give birth, to nurture and love her. I can’t turn back or stop time. All of my children would die.”
“Do you love Toyoashihara more than you love me?”
“O beloved.” Her gentle tone softly but firmly restrained his simmering rage. “I have received the Sword. Now I know your fierce longing, a longing so great that you would destroy even your own tempestuous self. I can therefore forgive everything you’ve done, and doubtlessly I’ll continue to do so in future. How great was our longing for each other. We were not so far apart as we had thought. The children of Toyoashihara realized this before we did. Behold your son and my daughter, who stand here before us. Is not the union of these two the same as if we had taken each other by the hand?”
As the God of Light remained silent, she continued, “Cherish Toyoashihara. I may have lost my body, but my hand is in every corner of this land. I am reaching out to you with love. People make bowls by kneading water and clay and baking them in the fire. Just as water and fire, which are incompatible, are thus united, so, too, can we be joined as one.”
The God whispered in a low voice, “An earthen vessel? It sounds like Toyoashihara—so easily broken, yet kneaded and fired again and again. And you’re telling me not to take this task away from them?”
“Yes. If you let your anger rule you, if you destroy this land in rage, the efforts of these two will have been in vain. Rather let them be a sign. Let them be a memento of us, you and me.”
“I understand,” the God of Light said suddenly. Yet his voice was filled with sorrow. “But do you understand my loneliness as I sit alone in our great palace in heaven with no one at my side? You don’t know the coldness of that high and empty void.”
The Goddess replied with sympathy, “But you have such wonderful children.”
Chihaya, his eyes adjusting at last to the light shed by the God, finally noticed his brother and sister at the top of the hill. They stood on a slight rise in front of their father, like two shimmering pillars. Princess Teruhi’s eyes were downcast, and her cheeks were pure white and translucent. Standing before her father, with whom she was at last united, she looked like a modest and reverent maiden. Prince Tsukishiro appeared to be looking toward Chihaya, but it was still too bright for him to tell.
The God of Light regarded his twin children for a while.
“O my children who have served me upon the earth,” he said softly. “What do you wish in recompense for your services? Ask of me anything. Teruhi, what of you?”
Princess Teruhi raised her face. In a serene, bright voice she replied, “I desire nothing. I only wish to accompany you, Father, to your palace in heaven.”
“And you, Tsukishiro?”
“I, too,” Prince Tsukishiro replied.
“Then so be it. You shall both accompany me.”
Finally the God of Light turned to Chihaya. Under his gaze, Chihaya felt himself blinded once again as everything about him was bathed in light.
“And you, my youngest. What do you desire, Son of the Sword?”
Chihaya was somewhat surprised but answered frankly, “I wish to be granted mortality. If it’s possible, let me live like the people of Toyoashihara, let me grow old as they do; let me die and seek rest with the Goddess.”
The God of Light paused before replying. But at last he spoke. “It is granted.”
Seeing the joy that lit up Chihaya’s face, he added in an amused tone, “I never imagined that you would fulfill your mission in this way—that you would ask for death from your own father. But if that is truly what you wish, so be it.”
Chihaya heard Princess Teruhi, who stood far away on the hill, whispering in his ear. Perhaps she spoke through an interval in time.
“My foolish little brother, you choose a different path right to the end. But then, that is your nature. Deep in my heart I have always liked you. I could not be your mother, but my feeling for you was like that of a mother for her child.”
A host of memories raced through his mind, but Chihaya could not voice his thoughts. In parting he could only whisper, “For always, without change.”
He heard Prince Tsukishiro’s voice also from a distance. “If the Goddess of Darkness ever resumed her physical form, I think that she would look just like Saya. Although I’m not my father, that’s what I believe.”
Chihaya looked at Saya, but she still stood with both eyes covered. He was tempted to speak to her but thought better of it, for it would be rude if the Goddess were still there.
The light gathered in the east and rose to heaven like a gleaming white pillar, then gradually faded from the rest of the land. The blue returned to the sky, the mountains regained their contours, and the buildings once again cast their shadows. The light suffusing the clouds dyed everything a vivid gold, and in the next instant all had returned to normal. But the ground still glittered white. Snow had fallen while no one noticed.
When Saya finally opened her eyes, she saw only the silent snowy landscape. A flock of sparrows descended on a harvested field now wrapped in white and pecked at fallen grains under the snow. A dog began to bark somewhere but ceased abruptly, daunted by the silence. Nothing had changed. It seemed she must have been dreaming.
“Has the God of Light gone?” she asked Chihaya softly.
“Yes, it’s all over. Toyoashihara has been saved. My brother and sister have gone, too,” Chihaya replied and then added af
ter a slight hesitation, “My brother watched you until the very end.”
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” Saya demanded. “I’ll never see him again. I kept my eyes covered just as you told me to.”
“I didn’t want to tell you,” Chihaya said and burst out laughing.
“That’s terrible!”
“Are you mad at me?”
“Of course!”
People began to poke their heads out of the buildings and come outside in groups. They looked about with expressions of wonder. They could hardly believe that nothing had changed, that everything had been restored. Torihiko flew up and shook a tree branch, dumping snow on everyone’s head.
“It’s over, it’s over! No more Darkness, no more Light. No more friends or foes. There’s nothing left to do. How about a snowball fight?”
“There’s plenty to be done, idiot!” Lord Shinado said, shaking his fist. He had snow down his collar. “We have to build a new country—a country that embraces one ruler.”
Lord Akitsu came and stood before Chihaya and Saya. “You are the new rulers of all the people. In place of the God and Goddess, you will be the father and mother of Toyoashihara. If you can live together in harmony, this earthen vessel will never be broken.”
Saya was so astounded she could hardly believe her ears, and it seemed that Chihaya was no different. With a puzzled frown, he asked Lord Akitsu, “Just what are you telling us to do?”
Lord Akitsu put his hand to his chin. “Well, first of all, you must have a wedding.”
“A wedding?”
“Yes, I believe so.”
“But Chihaya hasn’t given me a betrothal gift,” Saya said.
Chihaya choked for an instant and then said, “I gave you the Sword.”
“That doesn’t count.”
“But I have nothing else.”
“That’s true.” Saya looked up in surprise as though she had just realized it. “Neither of us owns anything. Well, I’ve never heard of two people with nothing being made rulers.”
“We’ll build you a palace,” Lord Akitsu said. “We’ll have a groundbreaking ceremony and bury the cornerstone deep in the earth. We’ll raise the main post and build the roof high. Everyone will help. By the time it’s built, spring will be here.”
Saya whispered privately to Chihaya, “I’ll invite my parents to the wedding. And I’ll tell them that we’ll give them so many grandchildren they won’t know what to do with them.”
“I heard that,” Torihiko said, beating his wings above their heads. He barely managed to dodge the snowball Saya threw at him.
Chihaya laughed but then asked seriously, “By the way, what’s a wedding? I’ve never heard that word before.”
Afterword
DRAGON SWORD AND WIND CHILD was my first work. I had never had anything published before and was completely ignorant of both the publishing industry and what it means to be an author. I simply devoted myself entirely to writing.
The editor in charge of this project was a friend from university where we belonged to the same children’s literature group. It was through her that the opportunity to write this book arose. The publisher where she worked appointed her to launch their first children’s literature series. Not knowing where to begin, she decided that her first step would be to find some new writers, and she contacted me. But neither of us really understood what this job offer meant. Being skilled in languages, my friend devoted most of her energy to finding exceptional works at international book fairs in Bologna and Frankfurt, and introducing them to Japan through good translations. This left me free to write at my own pace with very little pressure.
I, too, am a great fan of foreign literature. At the same time, however, I also love the Japanese language, especially classical Japanese. And my tastes are a bit peculiar. Although I am very fond of British children’s literature and mysteries, I am quite content to read them in translation, and I enjoy Japanese medieval literature just as much. This unusual combination gave me an idea: noticing that fantasy writers in England and the United States used Celtic mythology as an important element in their work, I realized that I could use the Kojiki in the same way. The absorption of the Celtic gods by Christianity seemed very similar to the way Buddhism superseded the ancient gods of Japan.
At the time I wrote this book, many critics insisted that fantasy would never take root in Japan. Excluding works by a few famous writers such as Kenji Miyazawa, Japanese fantasy was dismissed contemptuously as fairy tales without citizenship, folklore lacking the legitimacy of nationality. My work should have fallen into that same category. After all, unlike the next two books in the series, it was clear in many places in Dragon Sword and Wind Child that I was not trying to restrict the setting to Japan or to a specific time period. Having recognized that mythology in the broad sense is always at the basis of fantasy, I did feel that it made sense for me to use an episode from Japanese mythology as the model for my story. But when I conceived the three sibling characters Princess Teruhi, Prince Tsukishiro, and Chihaya, I was not planning to mimic Japanese myths concerning the three Shinto deities Amaterasu, Tsukuyomi, and Susano’o. If those ancient tales had been foremost in my mind when I wrote this story, I doubt that the relationship between Teruhi and Tsukishiro, or the idea that Chihaya and the Dragon Sword were one, would have occurred to me.
The concept of presenting the story predominantly from the perspective of the people of Darkness through Saya, the heroine, was inspired by the ôharai norito1 which I read in the Engi Shiki.2 This prayer is a litany of the various deities that carry away human corruption—a river deity, a sea-current deity, and a wind deity. This corruption is finally passed on to a goddess who wanders aimlessly in her kingdom below the earth. It is a story that must strike a chord with Japanese people like myself, accustomed as we are to the Japanese expression for forgiveness: mizu ni nagasu, literally, “to wash away in water.” If this noble deity who deigns to shoulder the impurities of the human race were the Goddess of Darkness, then her only logical counterpart would have to be light, the God of Light. And that is how the story Dragon Sword and Wind Child took shape.
The Japanese take the purifying power of swift-flowing water and the ubiquity of murmuring brooks and thundering cascades for granted; I felt that this was an important factor we share at our very core. I doubt that someone born and raised along the banks of the Yellow River, for example, would develop this sentiment, even though we belong to the same human race. The waterfalls I came across in northern Wales, which are reputed to inspire poets, on the other hand, were just like the little waterfalls one finds close by in the hills of Japan.
Dragon Sword and Wind Child was first published in 1988. When the original publisher subsequently shifted away from literature, my friend and I moved to Tokuma Shoten Publishing Company and it was republished under the Tokuma imprint in 1996. I am very grateful that the work has thrived for so long, despite its rather negative beginnings. In 2005, at the beginning of a new century, it was published for the first time in paperback in Japan. I hope that it will be even more accessible now that it is in paperback with the added pleasure of Miho Satake’s poetic illustrations.
— NORIKO OGIWARA
July 2005
1. A Shinto prayer for purification used in a governmental capacity to cleanse the nation of offences against the gods and re-ratify the lord’s right to rule.
2. A fifty-volume collection of rules and regulations detailing court ceremonies, etiquette, punishments, and religious observations.
Glossary
Ground Spiders. Tsuchigumo in Japanese. A people in ancient Japan thought to have lived in mountain caves until sometime around the fifth or seventh century. They are semi-mythical and share a name with the spider demons from folktales, who spin powerful illusions to catch their prey. The myth of the tsuchigumo is so popular that it has inspired a Noh play of the same name, and the tsuchigumo have appeared in various anime.
Mahoroba. An ancient Japanese name for
an idyllic and faraway country surrounded by mountains, similar to Arcadia or Shangrila. It is mentioned in a poem in the Kojiki (Records of Ancient Matters), a written account of Shinto history, and the oldest surviving book in Japan.
Palace of Light. The Palace of Light is designed like a Chinese palace compound, arranged in a rectangle with the long edge running north to south, and the short edge running east to west.
Prince Tsukishiro. The first character in his name means “moon.” The second character sounds like “white,” but the kanji used has a more ambiguous meaning. A Shinto shrine called Tsukishiro no Miya was built in Sashiki Castle on Okinawa in the thirteenth century.
Princess Teruhi. Her name means “shining sun.” In medieval Japan, there was a shrine to a male sun god called Teruhi Gongen on the island Tsushima.
Togano no shika mo yume no mani mani. An exorcism chant based on a story that appears in one of the Fudoki (a series of eighthcentury records about the culture and geography of the Japanese provinces), most likely the Hitachi Fudoki. A stag swims across a river to meet a doe and tells her of a dream he had where his back is covered with snow. The doe tells him that it means he will be killed and his meat covered with salt. Soon after, the stag is shot and his dream becomes reality. The chant translates as “even the stag of Togano is at the mercy of a dream,” and reminds you that if you take a bad dream seriously, it could become true.
Toyoashihara. Also called Toyoashihara no Mizuho no Kuni (Land Where Abundant Rice Shoots Ripen Beautifully), it is another name for Japan. In ancient times, the earth was viewed as an imperfect world where salvation could be found through the protection and blessing of the gods. Such poetic names had a power in themselves to attract the beneficence of the gods.
About the Author
Noriko Ogiwara was inspired to write by the classic Western children’s books she read as she was growing up. Dragon Sword and Wind Child is her first book, which won the Japan Children’s Literature Association’s Award for New Writers, and which is part of the award-winning Magatama Trilogy. Her other books include The Good Witch of the West and Fuujin Hisho. Ms. Ogiwara makes her home in Japan.
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