Somin Shōrai

In Japanese mythology and folklore, Somin Shōrai (蘇民将来, kyūjitai: 蘇民將來; also written as 蘓民將耒) was a poor man who gave food and shelter to a certain god in the guise of a traveler who was looking for a place to stay.

As a reward, the god provided Somin Shōrai's family a means to save themselves from an oncoming pestilence that eventually claimed the lives of those who had turned him away earlier.

The earliest version of the Somin Shōrai legend is found in the imperially commissioned gazetteer (Fudoki) of Bingo Province (modern eastern Hiroshima Prefecture) compiled during the Nara period, surviving in an extract quoted by medieval scholar and Shinto priest Urabe Kanekata in the Shaku Nihongi.

Mutō then revealed himself to have actually been the god, Susanoo, and promised to her that, in the future, all those who would wear miscanthus wreaths around their waists while declaring themselves to be Somin Shōrai's descendants, in times of epidemics, would remain unharmed.

[2][3][4][5] In the version of the story found in the Hoki Naiden, an Onmyōdō text on divination attributed to Abe no Seimei, Kotan Shōrai (portrayed here as the king of an Indian kingdom), who was slain by Gozu Tennō as punishment for his lack of generosity, is identified with the evil deity, Konjin.