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Who Is Kushinadahime (Kushiinadahime)?

Susanoo's wife, saved from the Orochi

Kushinada-hime

Kushinadahime (Kushinada-hime) is a princess of Izumo in the Kojiki who was saved from Yamata no Orochi and became the wife of Susanoo, the storm god. She was the youngest of the eight daughters of Ashinazuchi and Tenazuchi.

Each year one of her older sisters was eaten by the Orochi, until at last it was her turn. As her parents sat crying on either side of her, Susanoo appeared and agreed to slay the serpent on the condition that he could marry her. He turned her into a sacred comb, put it in his hair, and went into battle that way. After the serpent was defeated, the two built a palace at Suga and lived there, and Susanoo composed the poem "Yakumo tatsu / Izumo yaegaki / tsumagomi ni," singing of the fences he built to protect his wife.

The Nihon Shoki (Chronicles of Japan) writes her name as Kushiinadahime, and one theory links her name to rice fields (inada).

Read from Episode 5 (free)

Episodes featuring this character1

Episode 5

To Slay a Dragon, First Get It DrunkYamata no Orochi

Cast out of the heavens and convinced he has lost everything, Susanoo lands by the upper Hi River in Izumo. There he meets an elderly couple who have lost seven daughters to a giant serpent, and their last daughter, Kushinadahime, who calmly waits her turn. He turns her into a comb and sets her in his hair, has the family brew sake eight times over, and lures the eight-headed Yamata no Orochi into drinking itself to sleep. Mid-battle he snatches the falling comb from the air, slays every head, and finds a great sword inside the serpent's tail. For the first time he gives something away of his own will, presenting the sword to his sister Amaterasu, then returns to Izumo, where clouds rise from the earth and he sings of the eightfold fence he builds for his bride.

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