The Storm God Who Slew the Eight-Headed Serpent: Susanoo and Kusanagi

Susanoo is the storm kami of Japanese mythology, born from Izanagi's nose during the same purification ritual that produced his sisters Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi. Assigned to rule the sea, Susanoo instead spent his time weeping for his dead mother Izanami and behaving so destructively, flooding rice paddies and desecrating his sister Amaterasu's sacred hall, that he was ultimately banished from Takamagahara, the heavenly realm. Descending to earth in the land of Izumo, Susanoo encountered an elderly couple weeping because the eight headed, eight tailed serpent Yamata no Orochi was about to devour their last remaining daughter, Kushinada hime. Susanoo agreed to fight the serpent on condition he could marry her, then tricked the monster into drinking eight vats of strong rice wine set out on eight platforms, and slew the drunken serpent while it slept. In the serpent's tail he discovered a great sword, which he presented to Amaterasu, and which later became one of the three sacred imperial regalia of Japan under the name Kusanagi. Even his exile carries its own strange dignity in the myth: rather than remaining a purely destructive figure, Susanoo arrives in Izumo as an outsider who rescues a mortal family and earns his place in a new land through exactly the kind of decisive, protective action that had been entirely absent from his behavior in heaven.