Storytelling for Week 6: Yamato and the Demon Boar

Yamato and the Demon Boar

“Tell us of the hunt, Makoto! Tell us of how Lord Yamato slew the demon boar!”

Makoto impassively stared at the stars that blanketed the evening sky, then slowly shifted in his place furthest from the fire as he studied the youthful faces that stared at him expectantly. They all had heard the reports of what happened, but a mere catalog of events was not what these men sought. They wanted a story, told in the way only a gifted storyteller like Makoto could tell it.

Makoto ran a large hand across his slightly wrinkled face. He stared at his hand for a long moment as if in a trance, noting how the fingers were still thick and strong from decades of pulling the string of his hunting bow. He mapped the veins that bulged from the back of his hand and waited a moment longer before speaking. A good storyteller knew that there was value in being patient in the telling. A story was built not merely upon the relaying of the narrative itself, but upon the spaces before and in between the narrative, upon the tense breaks and pauses that cultivate anticipation in the listeners.

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The demon boar was the most formidable creature we had ever hunted. It was larger than any bear, and more cunning than a fox. Its tusks were the color of bleached bone and as long as a man’s forearm. A shaggy brown coat of fur covered the bulging muscles of the boar’s body and its fiercesome snout. Most terrifying of all were the beast’s eyes, which glowed like hot coals inside its cavernous eye sockets. Those eyes promised death to all who would dare hunt it.

Yamato rode boldly at the head of the hunting band, clad in a gleaming set of steel armor, each gold-lacquered piece tied together by crimson ribbons of the finest silk. His knocked bow (the bow was in fact not Yamato’s, for our lord had accidentally left behind his own bow and been forced to borrow another’s, but this detail Makoto saw fit to leave out) was held firmly in one hand, while his other hand casually cradled the reins controlling his handsome hunting horse. Thrust through the sash at his waist was the Sacred Grass-cutting Sword Kusanagi, its long, curved blade resting in an ornate bamboo scabbard.

When we spotted the boar, Lord Yamato immediately loosed the hounds upon the beast. Although the dogs made a valiant effort to harass the creature, the boar trampled and tusked the pitiful bays in mere moments. Our lord then ordered us to unleash a volley upon the demonic beast. Although the boar’s formidable appearance and ferocity frightened us, we obediently loosed shafts upon the dread creature. To our terrified surprise, the arrows bounced off the boar as if its fur coat was as strong as metal.

It was then that the creature charged us, smoldering eyes alight with rage. Although we turned to flee, the boar’s powerful legs outpaced those of our horses, and the demon rapidly caught up and brutally tore through our ranks. Men fell from their horses with horrified cries and were trampled by the boar’s stomping hooves. Hunters and horses alike were impaled by the beast’s tusks. A scant few, myself included, managed to survive the boar’s onslaught and take cover within the trees.

The courageous Lord Yamato alone stayed out in the open, his bow discarded in favor of his long lance.

(In fact Yamato too hid in the woods, Makoto knew, but the old hunter remained silent on this point).

Yamato boldly charged the boar, but his lance failed to pierce his foe’s hide and our brave lord’s steed was run through by a gore-stained tusk.

(In truth Yamato already lost his horse in the chaos that ensued before. He stood his ground behind a copse of trees a bowshot away from where I hid, Kusanagi tightly gripped in his hands).

Lord Yamato rapidly disentangled himself from the flailing hooves of his dying horse and drew the Sacred Sword from its scabbard. Fearless in the face of his demonic foe, Yamato watched the boar stamp one of its hooves against the ground in preparation for a charge.

(Makoto could still remember how Yamato and the boar had played their waiting game, Kusanagi staying behind the tree line and the demon patiently waiting for the lord to come out into the open).

The boar charged Lord Yamato, who leaped high into the air the moment before the creature was upon him. Our glorious lord landed atop the beast and plunged Kusanagi deep into its backside. Pulling free his blade, he leaped clear of the wounded beast and watched it collapse into a heap of violent death throes, the demon’s squeals of pain echoing loudly in the air.

(It was more difficult than Makoto thought to not tell of his part in the slaying of the boar. He had resisted the urge to admit that he had fired an arrow at the boar’s backside and briefly drew the attention of the creature away from Yamato and to the old hunter. It had been in that moment of distraction that Yamato had broken from the trees and fell upon the boar with Kusanagi, killing the beast with a single blow).

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Makoto saw the delighted faces of the young men who looked at him as he finished his story and was content with his narrative. It did not matter that the story he had told was a lie. These men did not need truth. Thinking that Yamato had slain the boar by his strength alone, these youths would grow in their love of Lord Yamato, and they would follow him all the more fiercely. That was all that was important. As for Makoto, he would content himself in knowing that he had played a small part in one of his lord’s legends, even if no one else would ever know of it.

Author's Note: This story is based on "The Labors of Yamato: The Demon Boar" in the Japanese mythology unit. In the original story, Yamato kills this demonic boar all by himself by cutting off his tail and then driving him off a cliff. In this version I changed the manner in which Yamato kills the boar. However, the main departure that I take from the source material comes in how I've changed the story form in order to explore some different themes. I made this a frame story told from the perspective of a made-up character who accompanied Yamato on the boar hunt. Makoto is an aging hunter who is known as a skilled storyteller, but he struggles with the desire to take his share of the glory by telling of his secret part in the slaying of the boar. Deciding that, as a storyteller, it is his duty to tell the story that will help solidify the loyalty of Yamato's future generation of vassals, Makoto tells a version of the story that gives his lord all the credit. Whether or not his decision was a good one I leave up to the readers.

A bit how I imagine what a Japanese hunting party might look like.
(Image Information: Painting of Emperor Jimmu with an expeditionary party by Ginko Adachi (1890)

Bibliography Information

Title: Romance of Old Japan, Part I: Mythology

Author: E.W. Champney and F. Champney

Year Published: 1917

Source: Un-textbook