Barely back from the west, Yamato Takeru received a new command from his father: “Pacify the savage deities and unsubmissive peoples of the twelve eastern roads.” There was no rest.
Stopping at Ise, he wept before his aunt Yamatohime: “Does my father wish me dead?” She gave him the sword Kusanagi and a pouch containing a fire-striker, saying, “Open this in an hour of need.”
In Sagami the local governor lied to him: “There is a violent deity in the marsh of this moor.” When the prince went out into the field, the man set fire to it from all sides. Ringed by flame, he faced certain death.
Then he opened the pouch: with Kusanagi he mowed away the grass around him, and with the striker he lit a counter-fire. The flames blew back on his enemies and he escaped unharmed. From this the blade was called the Grass-Cutter.
Crossing the strait of Hashirimizu, the sea god raged and the ship could not pass. His consort Ototachibana-hime said: “I will enter the sea in your place. Fulfil your mission.” Spreading rush mats upon the waves, she cast herself down, and the waters at once grew calm. Seven days later her comb washed ashore, and he raised a tomb for it.
Returning from the pacified east, he gazed from the Ashigara pass toward the eastern sky and sighed three times: “Azuma wa ya” — alas, my wife. From that lament, it is said, the eastern provinces are called Azuma.