itself in the wind, which naturally caused it great pain. In contrast, Ōnamuchi, unlike his quarreling elder brothers, told the hare to bathe in fresh water from the mouth of a river, and then roll in the pollen of cattails. The body of the hare was restored to its original state, and after its recovery, revealed its true form as a god. In gratitude, the hare told Ōnamuchi, the lowest born in the family, that he would marry Princess Yakami. The Hare of Inaba legend emphasizes the benevolence of Ōnamuchi, who was later enshrined at the Izumo-taisha. Japanese scholars have traditionally interpreted the struggle between the kind Ōnamuchi and his wrathful eighty brothers as a symbolic representation of civilization and barbarism in the emergent Japanese state. The version of the Hare of Inaba legend told in the Kojiki has been compared to similar myths from Java in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and India. Ise ga Naru version Long ago, when Japanese goddess Amaterasu and her entourage traveled around at the boundary of Yakami in Inaba, they were looking for a place for their temporary palace, suddenly a white hare appeared. The white hare bit Amaterasu's clothes and took her to an appropriate place for a temporary palace along Nakayama mountain and Reiseki mountain. About two hours' walk, accompanied by the white hare, Amaterasu reached a mountain top plain, which is now called Ise ga naru. Then, the white hare disappeared at Ise ga naru. The place of this legend is in Yazu town and Tottori city, in Tottori Prefecture (ancient Inaba and Houki), where the shrine Hakuto Jinja reveres the white hare. Footnotes References Further reading Antoni, Klaus (2015). "On the Religious Meaning of a Japanese Myth: The White Hare of Inaba". In: Comparative Mythology 1/1, 61-72. . External links Full text of Basil Hall Chamberlain's translation of "The White Hare of Inaba" Japanese legendary creatures Mythological rabbits and hares