Case file · Folklore / legend
Yamata no Orochi in Izumo
The Kojiki (712) tells how the storm god Susanoo killed the eight-headed serpent Yamata no Orochi on the upper Hii river in Izumo and found a sword in its tail.
712 CE · 35.30, 132.90 · status: legend
The account
The sword became the Kusanagi, one of the three imperial regalia. Some scholars read the serpent as the flooding, branching river or as iron-working clans whose red-stained rivers looked like blood.