Teito Monogatari:
The Tale of the Imperial Capital
Part 2: Supernatural Babylon
Author: Hiroshi Aramata
Part 2: The Demon's Origin
Chapter 8: Night and Day
It’s dark, Lieutenant Katō Yasunori thought. Why is it so dark?
Blackness encompassed everything. Rows of houses, trees, grass, and human beings were crushed under the weight of it. The dark was so deep and heavy that it seemed like the sun would never rise again.
Lieutenant Katō swam through the endless night like a blade of light, listening for night birds. Had more shikigami been sent against him by the sorcerer of the Tsuchimikado family?
He stopped suddenly and looked up at a pine tree looming above him. Two yellow eyes shone in the darkness, watching over Lieutenant Katō from above.
An owl? No. The bird was not an owl, but it was definitely spying on him.
Katō lurched into motion again and advanced more slowly than before. A sharp pain lanced through one arm. The handkerchief wrapped around it was stained bright red and oozed blood.
The night bird perched in the pine tree fluttered its wings and moved to another tree, trilling its call into the gloom. It was completely hidden in the shadows, but Lieutenant Katō recognized the bird’s call.
A raven.
What was a raven doing alone in a tree so late at night? Katō interpreted its presence as an ill omen. Ravens were messengers of the sun goddess, Amaterasu. When Katō reached for the bird’s presence in the dark, he saw an image in his mind of a dazzling golden bird with three legs.
A golden raven was the sun’s representative. Paired with its counterpart, the white hare that represented the moon, the bird was a symbol of all things in the universe and the creation of nature. The Tsuchimikado secret book, the Book of the Sun and Moon, contained such mysteries within it.
Why did the raven have three legs? There were several legends about that, much as there were many stories about a white rabbit pounding rice cakes on the moon. According to the Tsuchimikado family’s traditions, the raven was closely associated with astronomy, specifically sunspots.
Since ancient times, Asian people have attached great significance to sunspots. Western science was only starting to study the phenomenon. The increase and decrease of sunspots had an immeasurable impact on the climate and on crop yields. The Tsuchimikado family’s sorcerers paid a great deal of attention to sunspots from year to year for these reasons. When sunspots were numerous, the weather was good and harvests were also good. But when there were fewer sunspots than average, the weather became irregular and natural disasters happened.
The Edo period was, on the whole, a dark era marked by an unstable climate. There were far fewer sunspots than usual during that period.
Lieutenant Katō tried to find the bird, but he could no longer see it. It had to be lurking somewhere. “A yatagarasu,” he spat venomously.
Other cultures had also had contact with three-legged ravens, notably the Norse. Odin, a god of the sun, was also called the god of ravens. He was a one-eyed god who kept two great ravens perched on his shoulders. Some tales claimed that the ravens had three legs. The bird that served Apollo, the god of the sun in Greek mythology, was also a raven.
As Katō considered this, he saw a light in the darkness ahead. The path before him narrowed as the bumps and hollows beneath his feet became more pronounced. He protected his injured arm as best he could and bent his back. He was humiliated to be so injured by someone who wasn’t even a sorcerer.
After a while, the light grew warmer and illuminated his feet fully. The words “The Green Lodge” floated within the light. Katō relaxed and pushed open the ill-fitting door. He was safe at last.
Translator's Note
Raven messengers of the sun goddess Amaterasu in Japanese mythology are called yatagarasu. Check out the Yatagarasu series on this blog if you're curious about these creatures.
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