Ame no Wakahiko (天若日子, 天稚彦 Heavenly Young Boy) in some versions of

Japanese mythology Japanese mythology is a collection of traditional stories, folktales, and beliefs that emerged in the islands of the Japanese archipelago. Shinto and Buddhist traditions are the cornerstones of Japanese mythology. The history of thousands of year ...

is a god of grains, and the son of Amatsukunitama.

Mythology

Sent to earth

In many versions, when Ame no Hohi did not send word for three years, all the gods gathered up, and Ame no Wakahiko was one who was chosen to rule the earth. In many versions Amenowakahiko was given a bow. In some versions, however, Ame no Wakahiko is the son of Ame no Hohi and Ame no Wakahiko was sent to earth to look for him.

Death

In some versions, Ame no Wakahiko fell in love with Shitateruhime. Eight years later, after not receiving no report back, the gods sent a bird named Nakime down to earth to check in on him. Ame no Wakahiko, with his bow, shot the bird. The arrow pierced through the bird, but the arrow flew all the way to heaven.

Takamimusubi Takamimusubi (高御産巣日神, lit. "High Creator") is a god of agriculture in Japanese mythology, who was the second of the first beings to come into existence. It is speculated that Takamimusubi was originally the tutelary deity for the J ...

saw the arrow and threw it back at the earth where it hit Ame no Wakahiko while he was laying in bed, killing him. Other versions state that

Amaterasu Amaterasu, also known as Amaterasu Ōmikami () or Ōhirume no Muchi no Kami (), is the goddess of the sun in Japanese mythology. One of the major deities (''kami'') of Shinto, she is also portrayed in Japan's earliest literary texts, the ''Kojik ...

was the one who shot the arrow back at him.

Funeral

After Ame no Wakahiko's death, his parents built a hut (喪屋 moya) for their son. Ajisukitakahikone went down to pay his respect. However, due to Ajisukitakahikone looking similar to Ame no Wakahiko he was mistaken to be Ame no Wakahiko brought back to life. Ajisukitakahikone was offended by this and destroyed the hut and kicked it. The hut landed in the land of Mino and became a mountain called Moyama.

Other tales

Another story of Ame no Wakahiko appears in Japanese medieval literature of the

Muromachi period The is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate (''Muromachi bakufu'' or ''Ashikaga bakufu''), which was officially established in 1338 by t ...

(

Otogi-zōshi are a group of about 350 Japanese prose narratives written primarily in the Muromachi period (1392–1573). These illustrated short stories, which remain unattributed, together form one of the representative literary genres of the Japanese med ...

), in a narrative very similar to the Aarne-Thompson-Uther tale type ATU 425, "

The Search for the Lost Husband In folkloristics, "The Animal as Bridegroom" refers to a group of folk and fairy tales about a human woman marrying or being betrothed to an animal. The animal is revealed to be a human prince in disguise or under a curse. Most of these tales are ...

", or to the Graeco-Roman story of ''

Cupid and Psyche Cupid and Psyche is a story originally from ''Metamorphoses'' (also called ''The Golden Ass''), written in the 2nd century AD by Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis (or Platonicus). The tale concerns the overcoming of obstacles to the love between Psyc ...

'', by writer

Apuleius Apuleius (; also called Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis; c. 124 – after 170) was a Numidian Latin-language prose writer, Platonist philosopher and rhetorician. He lived in the Roman province of Numidia, in the Berber city of Madauros, modern-day ...

. The story is alternatively known as ''Ame no Wakahiko sōshi'' or ''Ame no Wakahiko monogatari'' (''The Tale of Ame no Wakahiko''), and serves as another etiological tale for the ''

Tanabata , also known as the Star Festival ( 星祭り, ''Hoshimatsuri''), is a Japanese festival originating from the Chinese Qixi Festival. It celebrates the meeting of the deities Orihime and Hikoboshi (represented by the stars Vega and Altair res ...

'' festival. According to professor Masako Sato, the calligraphy of the text indicates that its author is Emperor

Gohanazono (July 10, 1418 – January 18, 1471) was the 102nd emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. Imperial Household Agency (''Kunaichō'')後花園天皇 (102) retrieved 2013-8-28. His reign spanned the years from 1428 throu ...

, while French curator

Jeannine Auboyer Jeannine Auboyer (1912 - 1990) was a French curator of the Musée Guimet (1965–1980) in Paris, who made several archaeological expeditions to India and Cambodia Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), offici ...

dated the manuscript to ca. 1450. In this tale, Prince Ame no Wakahiko takes the form of a serpent. One day, he delivers a letter to the maidservant of a wealthy man. The maidservant gives the letter to her master, who opens it: within, a command for the man to surrender his three daughters to the serpent in marriage, else it will kill his entire family. The man's two elder daughters refuse to marry the animal, but the youngest decides to be married to the snake. The letter also instructed the man to build a palace near a pond, which is to serve as the couple's residence after their marriage. Soon, the human woman is delivered to the palace to await for her snake husband. An enormous serpent emerges from the pond and talks to its bride, assuaging her fears and asking for her to cut off his head. The human bride does as intended "with the blade of a fingernail clipper", and a handsome man comes out of the snakeskin. The man hides the snakeskin in a Chinese box and they enjoy their marital life. He later reveals he is a heavenly deity named Dragon Prince (or Dragon King - a ''kairyūō''), and that he must travel somewhere, and asks her to wait for his return. He also begs his wife not to open the chest, lest she will never see him again. His wife asks him what can she do to find his way to him, and he answers that she must seek a woman in Kyoto and buy a gourd. After some time, the wife is visited by her sisters, who discover that their brother-in-law, the snake, is in fact a handsome man. Spurred by envy, they convince their youngest sister to open the Chinese box. Only smoke comes out of the box, and later she learns he cannot return to her. She must, then, seek him out. She goes to Kyoto, buys a gourd and uses its vines to reach the heavenly realm. Now on Heaven, the girl asks directions from a man in hunting robes (the Evening Star), then from a man with a broom (the

Comet A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to release gases, a process that is called outgassing. This produces a visible atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena ar ...

), and finally from a cluster of people (the

Pleiades The Pleiades (), also known as The Seven Sisters, Messier 45 and other names by different cultures, is an asterism and an open star cluster containing middle-aged, hot B-type stars in the north-west of the constellation Taurus. At a distance of ...

), who cannot seem to know him. The girl then finds a person on a palanquin, who directs her to a jeweled mansion built on azure stone. At last, the girl enters the mansion and finds her heavenly husband, but he changes her into objects to hide her from his father, an ''

oni An is a kind of ''yōkai'', demon, orc, ogre, or troll in Japanese folklore. Oni are mostly known for their fierce and evil nature manifested in their propensity for murder and cannibalism. Notwithstanding their evil reputation, oni possess i ...

''. Eventually, the oni father-in-law discovers her and sets four tasks on his son's human wife: to herd a thousand cattle in one day and one night, to transport one million grains of rice to one granary to another, to stay in a warehouse full of centipedes, and in a warehouse full of snakes. She accomplishes all four tasks with her husband's assistance, since he gave her a magical sleeve. At the end of this tale, the oni father lets his son and the wife meet once a month, but she mistakes it for "once a year" and thus, the lovers can only reunite during the ''Tanabata''.

Shrine

Ame no Wakahiko is believed to enshrined at Abiko Shrine.

Mythology

Sent to earth

Death

Funeral

Other tales

Shrine

See also

References

Further reading