Reading Notes, Week 7, The Eight-Forked Serpent of Koshi, Part A.

 

The Eight-Forked Serpent of Koshi, Romance of Old Japan, Part I: Mythology and Legend by E. W. Champney and F. Champney (1917): 

• Usage of archaic-like language; the translation itself likewise probably leads to the, somewhat, difficult nature of deciphering what is occurring
• Not so terrible as to be completely unreadable, but the original author/storyteller was not afraid of sounding purple-prosy
• Similar like other hero stories in that the hero, Susanoo, is granted permission to marry the daughter of whomever he's saving/helping/etc.
• Woman being used as a consolation prize/reward for good deeds
• Further, women not being able to choose yes or no if they want to go with the strange, new man she meets

Susanoo slaying the Yamata no Orochi, by Yoshitoshi
(Wikipedia Commons)

• Purple-prose like description for things:
• "It hath eyes as red as a ripe mountain cherry, a noisome blood-inflamed body, armed with eight fearsome heads and eight forked tails. Moreover its back is all overgrown with firs, cedars, and pines, and it trails its tortuous coils over eight valleys and as many mountains."
• Noisome: Having an extremely offensive smell or disagreeable; unpleasant. (Google's Oxford Languages)
• The usage of tricks in subduing the creature, so that the hero can inevitably slay it
• E.g.: creating eightfold strengthened sake (Japanese rice wine) to get the creature drunk
• Supernatural elements, naturally, throughout to emphasize the God-status Susanoo has
• E.g.: the ability to turn his future wife into a comb to wear in his hair until he slays the creature