with the deposed monarch of Izumo, appears on the scene. Indeed, during the rest of the story, this "Great Deity of Miwa" and his colleague the "Small August Deity" (Sukuna-Mi-Kami), the deity Izasa-Wake, the three Water-Gods of Sumi, and the "Great Deity of Kazuraki" form, with the Sun-Goddess and with a certain divine sword preserved at the temple of Isonokami in Yamato, the only objects of worship specially named, the other gods and goddesses being no more heard of. This portion of the story is closed by an account of the troubles which inaugurated the reign of Jimmu's successor, Suisei Tennō, and then occurs a blank of (according to the accepted chronology) five hundred years, during which absolutely nothing is related excepting dreary genealogies, the place where each sovereign dwelt and where he was buried, and the age to which he lived,—this after the minute details which had been given concerning the previous gods or monarchs down to Suisei inclusive. It should likewise be noted that the average age of the first seventeen monarchs (counting Jimmu Tennō as the first) is nearly ninety-six years if we follow the Kojiki, and over a hundred if we follow the accepted chronology, which is based chiefly on the divergent statements contained in the Nihongi. The age of several of the monarchs exceeds a hundred and twenty years.
The above-mentioned lapse of a blank period of five centuries brings us to the reign of the emperor known to history by the name of Sujin Tennō, whose life of one hundred and sixty-eight years (one hundred and twenty according to the Nihongi) is supposed to have immediately preceded the Christian era. In this reign, the former monarch of Izumo or god of Miwa again appears and produces a pestilence, of the manner of staying which Sujin is warned in a dream.
In the following reign an elaborate legend, involving a variety of circumstances as miraculous as any in the earlier portion of the mythology, again centres in the necessity of pacifying the great god of Izumo; and this, with details of internecine strife in the Imperial family, of the sovereign's amours, and of the
