When it comes to swords, none of the discourse can be concluded without mentioning the katanaKATANA 刀 "sword" learn more... or any of the other legendary Japanese swords both in mythology and in history. This article intends to highlight several of the most storied and famous Japanese swords so that aficionados may have a better appreciation for the weapons from the Land of the Rising Sun.
“Grass Cutter”
This single weapon’s original name was Ame-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi (“Heavenly Sword of Gathering Clouds”) and is now called Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi (“grass-cutting sword”). It is an ancient weapon of Japan that is also associated with valor and, along with a mirror and a jade bead, is part of Japan’s imperial regalia. In some ways, this could be thought of as the Excalibur of legendary Japanese swords.
One of the most fascinating legendary Japanese swords, Grass Cutter is described as being just over 32 inches in length, with a blade resembling a calamus leaf and a 7-inch cross-guard resembling the spine of a fish. It is not a katana, as those did not come into play until 1185, at the earliest; rather, the closest analog to Grass Cutter’s design would be a gladius (a type of short sword).
Susanoo and the Story of the “Grass Cutter” Sword
The story of Grass Cutter goes back to ancient times. Susanoo, god of the sea and storms, had been wandering Japan when he came upon the troubled people of Izumo Province (now part of Shimane Prefecture). When he asked a family what the problem was, its leader, Ashinazuchi, explained that Orochi, an eight-headed serpentine dragon, had devoured seven of the family’s eight daughters and was planning to return to devour the eighth, Princess Kushinada. Susanoo has always been depicted as a hot-blooded hero figure; indeed, he decides to help Ashinazuchi’s family out.
After sneaking into Orochi’s lair, located in what is now the province of Fukui, Susanoo decides first to scout out the dragon for any possible information he could use to defeat it. Although this goes badly, with Orochi becoming alerted to Susanoo’s presence, the storm-and-sea god manages to escape intact. Susanoo subsequently explains that he will defeat Orochi in exchange for Kushinada’s hand in marriage. Ashinazuchi accepts the offer and Susanoo begins his plan by transforming Kushinada into a comb. In this form he places the princess into his hair so that she will be with him without having her life being placed at risk.
Susanoo’s plan begins by having the family brew eight massive barrels of sake, to be presented behind a fence with eight gates. Each barrel is to be located on the other side of a gate. Susanoo’s plan works as Orochi becomes greatly intoxicated, while in the process sticking each of his heads through one of the gates. With the dragon too blitzed to function, Susanoo shuts the gates on the drunken dragon’s necks and proceeds to decapitate each of them.
Grass Cutter’s appearance in the story begins when Susanoo decides to also slice off Orochi’s tails, finding the weapon within Orochi’s fourth tail. As reparation for some really over-the-top antics involving a flayed hose, Susanoo decides to gift the blade to Amaterasu, the goddess of the sun, as an act of contrition.
Later Grass Cutter Appearances
Here’s where tales of legendary Japanese swords gets interesting. The weapon’s name comes into play several generations later. During the reign of Emperor Keiko, a skilled warrior named Yamato Takeru is given Grass Cutter and some fire strikers by his aunt Yamatohime-no-mikoto. His aunt is the head shrine maiden of Amaterasu’s shrine, and the gifts are meant to keep him safe. During an engagement with a dangerous warlord across an open grassland, the warlord sets the field ablaze with a unit of archers firing flaming arrows in order to trap, and then fatally burn, Yamato. Poor Yamato can not flee by horseback as the warlord has also seen fit to kill his horse.
With no other option available to him, Yamato swings the great Grass Cutter in an effort to trim the fields before the fires can spread. This act reveals the sword’s secret ability; Yamato calls forth a great wind to fly in the direction he swings the blade. Realizing how useful this ability is, and wondering why no one mentioned it previously, Yamato uses the sword’s magic and his fire strikers to broaden the size of the fire and blow it back toward the warlord and his soldiers.
It is at this moment that Yamato renames Ame-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi to Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi, in commemoration of his seizing the victory from the jaws of defeat. Yamato eventually takes a wife and is slain in battle after foolishly ignoring her advice that he take Grass Cutter with him.
Does Grass Cutter Really Exist, and If So Where Is It?
Some of the legendary Japanese swords exist in a shadowy world of half-existence. While much of this is folkloric in nature, Grass Cutter, along with the mirror and bead, allegedly resides within Atsuta Shrine in modern-day Aichi Prefecture. These artifacts are not available for public display, due to superstitions related to the mysterious death by illness of anyone who lays eyes upon Grass Cutter. The last chance anyone may have seen them, if they truly exist, would be Emperor Akihito’s ascension to the throne in the late 20th century.
Legendary Japanese Swords of Mr. Muramasa and Mr. Masamune
The pair of legendary Japanese swords called Juuchi-Yosamu and Yawarakai-Te is associated with a sword maker called Muramasa and his mentor, one Goro Nyudo Masamune. The story goes that Muramasa, one of the most famous Japanese sword makers of all, challenged his master to see which of them could make the finer blade. Both men put their finest skills to work to fabricate the best blade they could. Muramasa created Juuchi Yosamu (meaning “10,000 Cold Nights”) and Masamune created Yawarakai-Te (meaning “Tender Hands”). Since craftsmanship and aesthetics were not the only ways to decide whose weapon was superior, the men agreed to test their projects by suspending each blade over a small creek. The edges would cut anything riding along the water’s surface.
The Juuchi-Yosamu sword managed to indiscriminately slice everything that made contact with its edge: fish, stray leaves, and even the air blowing against it were all cut effortlessly. Impressed with the sharpness of his student’s weapon, Masamune changed places with Muramasa, lowered Yawarakai-Te, and waited.
Where Juuchi-Yosamu “attacked” everything it encountered, Yawarakai-Te would cut only leaves. Fish brushing past the blade never received so much as a nick, and the wind passing across the instrument merely hissed as a gentle breeze.
Muramasa’s reaction to the differences in their blades was one of amusement. He thought his master had lost the skill in creating a weapon. Masamune was also amused, albeit at his student’s lack of understanding. The older man dried and sheathed Yawarakai-Te while the younger pupil continued to heckle his sword’s perceived inadequacies.
At this point, an onlooking monk decided to intervene. He bowed to both of the men before giving his perspective on the sword test. The monk remarked that while Juuchi-Yosamu was quite a fine blade, it was an evil item that cut things with no regard for the target – butterflies and human heads were the same thing to its edge. The monk then announced Yawarakai-Te as the finer of the two blades, as it did not cut anything possessed of innocence or that did not deserve to be cut.
Other Variations on This Tale
Another version of this legend describes the same creek test, but draws attention to the leaves that collided with each of the legendary Japanese swords’ blades. Leaves sliced by Juuchi-Yosamu would cling around the blade while the leaves passing over Yawarakai-Te’s edge continued their travel with the current. A more fantastical variant of the legend describes the leaves sliced by Yawarakai-Te reforming, as if by magic, as they traveled downstream. Still another variant of the creek test legend describes Yawarakai-Te either repelling leaves from its edge or, in a particularly nice bit of poetic karma, restoring the leaves sliced by Juuchi-Yosamu.
Muramasa vs. Masamune: The Waterfall Story
There is a separate, second legend surrounding the craftsmanship of Muramasa and Masamune, one that does not involve lowering swords into a creek. In this tale, the men are commissioned to produce swords for the shogunSHOGUN 将軍 "medieval military commander" learn more... (or the emperor, depending upon who is telling the story). After finishing their swords, the men test them out by thrusting them into a waterfall and the results are similar to the various forms of the creek test legend. The great Masamune’s sword easily slips in and out of the waterfall while Muramasa’s sword cuts every droplet of water it makes contact with. The outcome of this story is that Masamune is deemed capable of crafting holy swords and some versions of the legend have Muramasa put to death for creating nothing but evil, unholy weapons.
Real Swords from Masamune
Legendary Japanese swords sometimes reside only in myth and were never actually seen on Earth. But not always. While the truth of the matter is that these two smiths hail from vastly different periods in history, both Masamune and Muramasa were indeed real people and are acknowledged as being swordsmiths of the highest order. While Yawarakai-Te may be mythical, several other extant blades can be traced to Masamune.
Honjo Masamune
This particular blade was representative of the Tokugawa shogunate throughout most of the Edo era, passing from one shogun to the next, similar to a badge of office. The Honjo is regarded as such a pinnacle of the Japanese sword that is was declared a “National Treasure of Japan” in 1939.
While the Masamune part of this sword’s name is obvious, Honjo arose from its relationship to Honjo Shigenaga, a 16th century general under Uesugi Kenshin’s command. At one point in service to Kenshin, Honjo ran afoul of a man named Umanosuke. At this time, Umanosuke was the owner of the Honjo Masamune sword, and tried to use it to add Honjo’s head to his collection of decapitations. Fortunately for Honjo, the blade merely split his helmet, allowing him just enough time to kill Umanosuke and claim the weapon as his own, albeit with several fresh chips from the skirmish. Honjo held onto the blade until his deployment to Fushimi Castle around 1592 to 1595.
Honjo would eventually be parted from his weapon, selling it to Toyotomi Hidetsugu, nephew and retainer to Hideyoshi, for a large sum of money. The blade then changed hands several times: to Hideyoshi, to Shimazu Yoshihizo, back to Hideyoshi, and then back into the hands of the Kii family branch of the Tokugawa clan until the end of World War II.
During the United States’s occupation of Japan, it banned ownership of edged Japanese weapons – be they culturally legendary Japanese swords or not – by anyone other than police officers and those possessing a specific governmental permit. Prince Tokugawa Iemasa sequestered the Honjo Masamune and 14 other blades in a Mejiro police station in December of 1945. A month later, Mejiro’s police handed the weapons off to a Sgt. Coldy Bimore, a name possibly decayed due to phonetic misunderstandings and allegedly connected to AFWESPAC’s Foreign Liquidations Commission.
Investigation into Bimore reveals that no such man is recorded to exist, leaving the current location and owner of the weapon a matter of speculation.
Fudo Masamune
Another of the legendary Japanese swords is the blade called Fudo Masamune. This weapon is notable for bearing Masamune’s actual signature. Much like with Honjo Masamune, Fudo Masamune was purchased by Toyotomi Hidetsugu, in 1601. Hidetsugu passed the blade on to Tokugawa, who later passed it onto one Maeda Toshiie. Maeda Toshitsune would later return it to Tokugawa, likely as a retirement present. Since then, the blade became an heirloom of the Owari-Tokugawa family.
Fudo Masamune is a ten inch-long tanto which bears a carving of tree roots along its front outer edge. Its back end features chopstick-style grooves and depicts a dragon along the ura, the side of the blade facing the wielder. The weapon’s name comes from an engraving of Fudo Myo-o, a Buddhist war god.
Musashi Masamune
This weapon, much like the previous two, found its way into the hands of the Tokugawa Shogunate through its Kii branch and was passed onto the main line of the Tokugawa clan. After the Bakumatsu (the end of the Edo era), Tokugawa Iesato granted the Musashi Masamune to Yamaoka Tesshu for his work toward a peaceful negotation between Count Katsu Kaishu and Saigo Takamori.
Yamaoka was humbled upon being given such a masterpiece and soon passed it down to Iwakura Tomomi, an influential bureaucrat whose likeness used to be printed on ¥500 bills. After changing owners all the way into the 20th century, the Musashi Masamune eventually fell into the possession of the Society for the Preservation of Japanese Art Swords in 2000 thanks to Motoo Otsuyasu, a businessman. If only more legendary Japanese swords were in such safe hands.
The blade is a 29-inch item that has many of the qualities associated with a Masamune piece. The sole discrepancy is in the proportion of blade length versus width; historians will point out that this is evidence of Masamune’s transition into nanbokuchoNANBOKUCHO 南北朝 "the period 1336-1392" learn more... style blades from his Kamakura origins. Despite apparently being named after Musashi Province, the site of Edo and then Tokyo, the weapon’s name in fact comes from its alleged connection to Miyamoto Musashi, the iconic swordsman of Japan. Much like the Honjo, this Masamune is also regarded as a Japanese national treasure.
Hocho Masamune
Unlike the other legendary Japanese swords on this list, there are three Hocho Masamune. While each of these tantos is confirmed to be made by Masamune, their overall appearance, with their wide bodies, more closely resembles a trio of cooking knives. One of these blades possesses two short grooves along the length of its blade and had restoration work done to it in 1919. These items were sold for an amount roughly equivalent to 14 cents. The Hocho Masamune are now displayed within the Tokugawa Art Museum in Aichi Prefecture.
Kotegiri Masamune
This weapon’s name means “kote cutter;” a kote is an arm guard used by archers to prevent the string from stinging the inside of their forearm. The story goes that Asakura Ujikage used this weapon to cut the kote of another samuraiSAMURAI 侍 "warrior serving a lord" learn more... during the Onin War’s Battle of Toji. Oda Nobunaga subsequently claimed the sword and had its length shortened. By 1615, the weapon was handed off to the Maeda Clan whom eventually gifted it to the sword-collecting Emperor Meiji in 1882.
President Harry Truman’s Masamune
Finally, American President Harry S. Truman was gifted a Masamune sword following World War II. It is currently displayed within his Presidential Library and Museum in Independence, Missouri. The relationship between Japan and Truman is, for obvious reasons, fraught with complexity. But it’s interesting that the man who unleashed two atomic bombs would have owned something destined to become of the legendary Japanese swords of today.