One of the Three Noble Children, born when Izanagi washed his nose. Charged with ruling the sea plain, he instead wept for his mother's land until the green mountains withered, and was driven out.
Going up to the High Plain of Heaven he broke the ridges of the rice fields, filled in the ditches, and flung a flayed horse backwards into the weaving hall — driving his sister Amaterasu into the rock cave.
Cast out, he came down beside the river Hi in Izumo and met an old couple about to give their daughter Kushinada-hime to an eight-headed serpent. He turned the girl into a comb and set her in his hair, made the serpent drunk on eight-fold refined sake, and cut it down.
When he split the tail his blade chipped, and from inside came the sword Kusanagi — later one of the three imperial regalia. The unruly god takes a divine treasure out of the body of the thing he has killed.
Building a palace at Suga to live in with Kushinada-hime, he saw the clouds rising and sang: 'Eight clouds rise — the eightfold fence of Izumo, to enclose my wife I build an eightfold fence, that eightfold fence.' It is held to be the first waka in Japanese.
The raging god was also the first poet.
Storm, the violent spirit, and the power to drive off calamity. He is enshrined at Suga Jinja and Yaegaki Jinja in Shimane, and at Yasaka Jinja in Kyoto.
In the Gion cult he was identified with Gozu Tenno and widely worshipped as a god who wards off plague. Violent force, turned around, becomes protective force.
A banished, raging god became the most fervently worshipped protector against plague in the capital. Given that the Gion festival began as a plea to drive out epidemic, what was wanted from this kami was never mildness but a violence greater than the calamity itself.
A rough stick: twisted, knotted into burls, gnawed by insects or animals, a trunk going black with rot.
The Bureau sends this kami down onto sticks full of flaws. He does not settle on a tidy one. That is the god's own character — the roughness is itself the power.
Note: this section is the Bureau's own reading, not a record from the chronicles.
The share of issued certificates in which this kami appeared. It shifts as more sticks are appraised. Variant spellings are reconciled before counting.
No published certificate bears this kami yet.