Read, reflect, pray
Nihon Shoki: The lost fishhook and the sea palace
Nihon Shoki · Story 15 of 17
失った釣針と、海の宮
Sea fortune, mountain fortune, and Toyotamabime’s form.
English translation of this site’s published story summary and reading notes. This is a selected reading guide, not a complete translation of the ancient chronicle.
A variant account (issho, introduced as “one writing says”) is a different tradition preserved beside the main narrative. It is labeled separately below.
Main narrative
Book 2, section 10
The younger brother Hohodemi, who gains mountain fortune, borrows and loses his elder brother’s fishhook. Pressed to return it, he grieves by the shore; Shiotsuchi leads him to the sea palace. The sea deity gathers fish to search, and the hook is found in a sea bream’s mouth.
The younger marries the sea deity’s daughter Toyotamabime and stays three years. On returning home he receives jewels controlling the tides and uses them to make his brother submit. Later Toyotamabime comes ashore to give birth, asking him not to watch, but he peers in.
The main narrative records Toyotamabime becoming a dragon during birth. Ashamed, she closes the sea road and returns, depicting the separation between sea and land.
Variant account (issho)
Book 2, section 10 variant 1
Here Toyotamabime changes into an enormous eight-fathom wani. The dragon of the main narrative and wani of this variant can be read as distinct expressions.
Compare with the Kojiki
The Kojiki also describes Toyotamabime as an eight-fathom wani. The dragon of the Nihon Shoki’s main narrative is not treated as a form common to every tradition.
The lost fishhook and the sea palace →Connected figures
Names and relationships in a chronicle may differ from later traditions. Each figure’s introduction identifies its sources.
Sources and edition (2)
English explanations on this page were prepared by Inori no Mori from the cited text and its Japanese explanations. They are not an official translation or a prescribed liturgy.