The dragon with eight tails and eight heads

Japanese tales, including monster and dragon tales, are very different from western and near eastern dragon books.

Susanoo was banished from the land of the gods and was forced to walk the land of mortals. One day, while walking near a wide river, Susanoo saw chop-sticks floating down. Susanoo figured that he would find living people at the source of the chop-sticks and moved up the river.

Susanoo didn't have much to walk before he reached an elderly couple weeping, with a beautiful girl next to them.

Susanoo asked them why were they weeping and the elderly man replied. He said he was the god of the land,  the son of the great mountain god. Every year a dragon came, a great serpent with eight tails and eight heads and ate one of his eight daughters. Now only one remained, the girl standing next to them.

The couple told Susanoo the dragon was a gigantic monster. Its eyes shone red like many Chinese lamps. Its belly was filled with fire. It was so big it had vegetation growing on its back. It was taller than eight mountains and longer than eight valleys.

The old couple told Susanoo that no mortal hero or immortal champion dared approach the horrific creature. Even he, the god of the land, was powerless against the dragon.

But Susanoo was not afraid. He built a huge fence across the monster's flaming path with eight narrow openings in the wall. In the openings he placed barrels with strong rice wine distilled eight times.

The dragon finally came, on the same day it ate the seven daughters the previous years. It painted the sky red with light from its eyes and its talons dug fiery pits in the earth. But then the dragon reached the wall and saw a reflection of the girl inside the barrels of wine. The dragon pushed his heads through the openings in wall, swallowed the barrels of wine and promptly fell asleep.

Susanoo killed the dragon with eight tails and eight heads while it slept and the land was flooded with the monster's poisonous black blood.

Inside one of the eight tails the grass-whittler sword was found, one of the great artifacts of Japan.

However, in a manner that befits a worthy dragon book, a final twist enters the story. The great dragon with the eight tails and eight heads was reborn after eight emperors ruled the land of the rising sun. And the dragon stole the sword that Susanoo found in his tail and took it to the king of serpents, living inside the deepest ocean.

This is the story of how Japan gained and lost the grass-whittler sword, the great heirloom of the sun-goddess herself.