Who Is Toyotamabime (Toyotama-hime)?
The sea princess, grandmother of Emperor Jimmu
Toyotama-bime-no-Mikoto
Toyotamabime (Toyotama-bime-no-Mikoto) is a goddess in the Kojiki, the daughter of the sea god Watatsumi and the wife of Hoori (Yamasachihiko).
In the sea palace, she fell for Hoori at first sight when she found him sitting in a tree beside the well. With her father's permission they married and spent three years together. After her husband returned to land, she found she was pregnant and came ashore, saying a child of the heavenly gods should not be born in the sea. When the time came, she begged him, "I will give birth in my true form, so please do not look." But he peeked and saw her as a huge wani (Yahiro-Wani, her true form). Ashamed, she closed off the border between sea and land and went back to the sea. Still longing for her husband, she sent her younger sister Tamayoribime to raise the child and to carry a poem to him.
The leading theory is that a wani was a shark; the Nihon Shoki (Chronicles of Japan) describes her true form as a dragon. Her son Ugayafukiaezu was the father of Emperor Jimmu, so she is Emperor Jimmu's grandmother.
Episodes featuring this character3
Episode 6
The Hare Who Bragged One Shark Too SoonThe White Hare of Inaba
A hare crosses the sea by hopping along a line of wani (sharks), counting their backs as he goes. Then, one step from shore, he says one word too many and loses his whole coat. The Eighty Brothers give him a fake cure that leaves him in agony, and the one who saves him is their youngest brother, Onamuji, who walks at the very back carrying everyone's bags. When the princess spots yellow pollen and white fur on his sleeve, her choice is clear…
19 pages
NEWEpisode 11
Not a Thousand Hooks. Only the Lost One.Umisachi and Yamasachi
Hoori loses his older brother's treasured fishhook in the sea, and even a thousand new hooks won't buy forgiveness. An old god of the tides guides him to a palace at the bottom of the ocean. After falling in love with a princess and spending three happy years there, Hoori gets the hook back. But the two jewels the sea god gives him lead the brothers into a bitter showdown.
19 pages
NEWEpisode 12
The Emperor's Grandma Was a Sea PrincessToyotama-hime and the Birthing Hut
Toyotamabime enters the birthing hut with one plea: "Please don't look." But Hoori is so worried that he peeks, and inside he sees a huge lord of the sea, part shark and part dragon. He runs, then turns back. By then his wife has left their child behind and closed the road to the sea. Neither of them can let go of the other, and only their songs still cross the line between sea and shore.
19 pages