In the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, the earliest surviving Japanese chronicles compiled in the 8th century, the storm god Susanoo descends from heaven in disgrace and stumbles upon a weeping family. Their seven daughters have already been devoured, one a year, by an eight-headed, eight-tailed serpent called Yamata-no-Orochi. The eighth daughter, Kushinada, is next.
Susanoo's solution is elegantly underhanded: he brews eight vats of strong rice wine and arranges them on a platform with eight openings. Orochi obligingly dips one head into each vat, drinks itself unconscious, and the god butchers each head in turn. Inside the serpent's middle tail he finds a great sword — Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi, the "grass-cutting blade" — which he sends up to his sister Amaterasu, the sun goddess. From her it eventually descends to the imperial family.
Even today, Kusanagi is one of the three Imperial Regalia of Japan, alongside the mirror Yata-no-Kagami and the jewel Yasakani-no-Magatama. None of them are ever shown publicly; the current sword has reportedly been seen only by a tiny circle of Shinto priests and emperors during enthronement. Most scholars believe the original blade may have been lost at sea in 1185 during the Battle of Dan-no-ura, and that the modern sword is a replica. But you cannot ask. You cannot see. And in a culture where myth and statecraft have always been quietly woven together, that is exactly the point.
