Storytelling Week 7: The Unsung Hero(ine)

(Yamato fighting the fire. True to the theme of this entire myth, Tacibana isn't even included in the picture. Via Wikimedia Commons)

Author's Note: This week, I did the Japanese Mythology unit, and was really hit by the adventures of Yamato--but not because of Yamato; because of his wife! Princess Tacibana, in my opinion, was the real reason why Yamato accomplished anything in life, because of her incredible devotion and love for her husband. Even though he didn't appreciate her. So I decided to tell the story from her point of view, because often in the myths it was mentioned that she had done this incredible thing (like attempted to fashion a dagger to kill her captors with from her headdress, all with her hands tied behind her back!) as an afterword, after the story had followed Yamato the whole time. I was really curious: what was she thinking, as she accomplished all of these things? The dagger episode really struck me, as did--as is also mentioned in this story; it's kind of a two-part thing--the scene where she runs through a burning field to give her husband his magic sword, so he can save himself, her, and his men from the fire that has been set upon them by Yamato's enemies. 

To give some context: the first story (this version of it, anyway) takes place early on in their marriage, when Yamato, Tacibana, and a bunch of Yamato's men are traveling (in a delegation, I think?) and one of Yamato's enemies--he's always making enemies--attacks and steals Tacibana away to his tower. Yamato, on his quest to rescue her, meets a goddess, who dresses him as a woman in order that he may infiltrate the bandit's castle, get him drunk, and kill him. He finds Tacibana in the castle tower, the aforementioned dagger clutched in her teeth. The second happens when Yamato makes another enemy, Takeru, and Takeru sets fire to the field Yamato and his men are camping in one night. They're forced to shoot their horses so they don't get stampeded, and are about to give up hope before they see Tacibana running through the field towards them, Yamato's sacred sword with her, having followed them the whole way in case he might need the sword. I wanted to use a third story as well, which involves Tacibana evacuating a castle and performing a kind of exorcism of evil when a dragon attacks and her husband isn't home, but I ran out of room!

And so here is the story.

***

She hadn’t meant to fall asleep. But at least, she thought, as the door opened and her heart fluttered like a useless, clipped-wing bird in her chest, she had done so with the dagger in her mouth.

All the night she had fought with the bindings on her hands, until finally her headdress had come smashing to the ground, many brilliant jeweled sections scattering to all four corners of the room. She had been jerking at the bonds so viciously that they had bounded quite far, and one particularly pointed section had hit her in the knee, opening up a gash through both silk and flesh. As she gasped at the pain, a plan had suggested itself quietly in her mind. And so began the rest of her contortions: wrestling herself and her dress into a position where she could finally grasp the makeshift dagger in her teeth, and then wrestling herself back up to a sitting position again, her mind racing all the while, her ears ringing with every suggestion of a noise outside the treasury door. Halfway through the mess of dragging herself upright, her hair starting to come loose and tumbling into her eyes, she had cursed herself: what possible harm could she accomplish holding a dagger between her teeth? But she had made it this far already; she might as well try.

After all of this, she remembered wildly, she had been quite tired. Tired enough to fall asleep, even despite the danger, as every second passed, that Takeru would arrive again.

The door was still opening. She had barely registered her surprise as she caught a glimpse of a dress and a flash of long, loose hair before she heard the voice: “Tacibana! Princess Tacibana!”

Her body was moving faster than the rest of her: once again, she had barely enough time for another thought before she was moving again. She had gasped when she heard his voice—Yamato, she thought wildly, he’s come for me—and she gasped again as she slipped on her skirt halfway to her feet and her injured knee struck the floor. The stones were cold again where she fell, and she shivered so hard her teeth jarred against one another.

But the figure in front of her looked only vaguely like Yamato. He had somehow gotten himself dressed as a woman, and his cheeks were flushed with effort beneath his face paint. His dress was stained with blood; she hoped it was Takeru’s. In an instant, all of her worry grew wings and took flight from her chest, leaving only a nest: warm and safe and filled with humor and love. “Yamato,” she said, half-laughing. “Yamato.”

He only stared at her, his fierceness fading, half-bewildered. “Tacibana?” he asked.

She giggled again. Her heart was soaring somewhere up in the sky. He had come for her. “Yamato,” she said again. “How on earth did you run up all of those stairs in that dress?”

***

Later, the Princess Tacibana grasped frantically at the memory of that moment. Most of all, she remembered how cold it had been in the treasury. Now, with the fire singeing the soles of her feet as she ran, the hilt of the Sacred Sword singeing her hands as it swung to hit her thighs with a stinging whap with every step she took, and her breath singeing her lungs as she gasped in smoke instead of air, she was hard-pressed to remember a time when the chill had seeped into her bones so far she was numb.

The fire roared, fearsome as a dragon in full fury, and coiled around her in writhing circles in the field. It dragged its tongue up her skirt: she shed the fabric with nary a care except to save her poor body from more torture. Her skin swelled and cracked from the mere heat of the flame. She felt like a roasted cherry, her insides becoming molten just as fast as her outsides blackened and peeled. Her underdress met the same fate as her skirt as the tips of her sash and her sleeves grew smudged with flame.

Still she ran, her heart a leaping stag in her throat, feet barely skimming the smoldering grass. Until she reached him.

Yamato and his men had stopped their fight with the fire to watch her—probably, she thought, half-exasperated, all her thoughts whirling askew in her head, because I’m not wearing any clothing. Despite this, the look on her husband’s face was inscrutable: his brow was closed and stormy, his eyes faraway, as they had been since that ill-fated day when the sea goddess had made herself known to him and he had sworn he would not rest until he found her again. Tacibana threw herself at his feet, brandishing the sword somewhere in the direction of his knees with arms that felt like dead fish.

“Yamato,” she rasped out. All she could taste was copper. She wished she could peel her screaming skin off her body. Her head felt strangely light. She smiled, because she had to at the sight of his dear face. “My husband, you left your sword.”

Silently, he gazed at her. There was no sign of joyful recognition in his eyes, and nothing to suggest that once he had loved her more than anything. Then, lips tight, he took the sword from her hands—she took a moment to be grateful for the sudden loss of the burden; her arms had been shaking—and turned away. With slow, measured strokes, he began to shear off the burning grass in a circle around them.

And Tacibana lay with her protesting body pressed against the cool dirt, her hair a singed, smoking coronet around her head. Because no one was watching, she let the tears slip from her eyes. They stung her cheeks. Have faith, she told herself, he will love you again one day.

She held that thought close to her heart, and closed her eyes.

***

Source: Romance of Old Japan, Part I: Mythology and Legend by E. W. Champney and F. Champney (1917).