Kusanagi no Tsurugi

[2] He instructed that eight vats of sake (rice wine) be prepared and put on individual platforms positioned behind a fence with eight gates.

With this distraction, Susanoo attacked and slew the beast (with his sword Worochi no Ara-masa),[3] chopping off each head and then proceeded to do the same to the tails.

[2] In the fourth tail, he discovered a great sword inside the body of the serpent which he called Ame-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi.

[1] These gifts came in handy when Yamato Takeru was lured onto an open grassland during a hunting expedition by a treacherous warlord.

The lord had fiery arrows loosed to ignite the grass and trap Yamato Takeru in the field so that he would burn to death.

Desperately, Yamato Takeru used the Ame-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi to cut back the grass and remove fuel from the fire, but in doing so, he discovered that the sword enabled him to control the wind and cause it to move in the direction of his swing.

Eventually, Yamato Takeru married and later fell in battle against a monster, after ignoring his wife's advice to take the sword with him.

In the Nihon Shoki, the Kusanagi was removed from the Imperial palace in 688, and moved to Atsuta Shrine after the sword was blamed for causing Emperor Tenmu to fall ill.

Along with the jewel (Yasakani no Magatama) and the mirror (Yata no Kagami), it is one of the three Imperial Regalia of Japan, the sword representing the virtue of valor.

[9] However, his ship allegedly sank at sea, allowing the sword to wash ashore at Ise, where it was recovered by Shinto priests.

Replicas of the sword were made as early as the 9th century, and the original is entrusted to Atsuta Shrine in Nagoya.

[10] According to Shinsuke Takenaka of the Institute of Moralogy, a 12th-century replica preserved in the Imperial palace is the one used in coronation ceremonies,[11] probably due to the fragility of the original sword.

Hi no Omashi no Gyoken has changed over time; at present, two tachi made by swordsmiths Nagamitsu and Yukihira in the Kamakura period play the role.