=Ninigi.=—Meanwhile the Sun-Goddess became desirous of establishing the rule of her own grandchild Ninigi, son of Masaya a katsu, in Japan. After several fruitless attempts to prepare the country for his reception by purging it of the swarms of evil deities which infested it, two gods named Take-mika-tsuchi (Thunder?) and Futsunushi (Fire?) were sent to summon Ohonamochi to yield over his authority. After some demur he did so, and Ninigi was accordingly despatched to earth, accompanied by a long train of attendants who provide further material for the genealogists. They descended on a mountain in Kiushiu. Here Ninigi took to wife a Mountain-god’s daughter, named Konohana Sakuya-hime (the lady who blossoms like the flowers of the trees), rejecting as too ugly her elder sister Iha-naga-hime (the rock-long-lady). The latter, indignant at this slight, uttered a curse:—‘The race of visible men shall change swiftly like the flowers of the trees, and shall decay and pass away.’ Hence the shortness of human life. By Konohana Ninigi had three children. The eldest, Ho no Susori, became a fisherman, the second son, Hohodemi, a hunter.
Ho no Susori once proposed to his brother to exchange their respective callings. Hohodemi accordingly gave over to his elder brother his bow and arrows and received a fish-hook in return. But neither of them profited by the exchange, so Ho no Susori gave back to his brother the bow and arrows and demanded from him the fish-hook.
Hohodemi, however, had in the meantime lost it in the sea. He took his sword and forged from it a number of new fish-hooks which he piled up in a winnowing tray and offered to his brother by way of compensation. But the latter would have none but his own, and demanded it so vehemently of Hohodemi as to grieve him bitterly. Hohodemi went down to the sea-shore and stood there lamenting, when there appeared to him the Old Man of the Sea, by whose advice he descended into the sea-depths to the abode of the god of the Sea, a stately palace with lofty towers and battlements. Before the gate there was a well, and over the well grew a thick-branching cassia tree into which Hohodemi climbed. The Sea-god’s daughter Toyo-tama-hime (rich-jewel-maiden) then came out from the palace to draw water. She saw Hohodemi’s face reflected in the well, and returning within reported to her father that she had seen a beautiful youth in the tree which grew by the well. Hohodemi was courteously received by the Sea-god, Toyo-tama-hiko (rich-jewel-prince), who, when he heard his errand, summoned before him all the fishes of the sea and made inquiry of them for the lost fish-hook, which was eventually discovered in the mouth of the Tai. Toyo-tama-hiko delivered it to Hohodemi, telling him when he gave it back to his brother to say, ‘a hook of poverty, a hook of ruin, a hook of downfall,’ to spit twice, and to hand it over with averted face.