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C . S c o t t L i t t l e t o n

Occidental College, Los Angeles

Yamato-takeru: An “Arthurian” Hero

in Japanese Tradition

A bs tr ac t

T he curious similarities between the legendary Japanese hero Yamato- takeru and Kin g A r thur do not appear to be mere ly for tuitous. We now know that between the secondand the fifth centuries a .d . the folklore of both Japan and Western Europe was influenced — both directly and indirectly — by that of several nomadic Northeast Irania nspeaking tribes (Sarmatians, Alans, etc.). These tribes originated in the steppes of whatis today southern Russia and the Ukraine. The last surviving Northeast Iranian speakers, the Ossetians of the north- central Caucasus, preserve a corpus of legends about ahero called Batraz who closely res embles both Yamato- takeru and Arthur. It is suggested that Yamato- takeru, A rthur, and Batraz derive from a common Northeast Iranianprototype.

Key wo rds : Yamato- takeru — Northeast Iranians — K ing A rthur — Batraz — comparative folklore

Asia n Folklore Studies, Volume 54 1995: 259- 274



OF all the heroes in Japanese legendry , none is more “A rt hurian”

than Yamato- takeru ) “T he Brave of Y amato•” Indeed, the tales of Y amato- takeru^ strength, courage, leadership,

feats of arms, love affairs, magical sword, and untimely death all bear aremarkable resemblance to the legends surrounding the life and death ofK ing A rthur, as related in Sir T homas Malory ’s Le Morte D A rthur (Baines 1962) and a host of other medieval British and continental texts.In the present paper I propose that the legends of these two heroes, as

well as those of Lancelot du Lac and Batraz (a hero celebrated by theOssetians of the north- central Caucasus), all derive from the same ancientsource, and that tms heroic tradition has managed to span the Eurasianlandmass from one end to the other. But before proceeding to this comparison, let us s ummarize the relevant portions of the legend of Yamato-takeru.

T h e L e g e n d o f Y a m a t o - t a k e r u

T he oldest versions of the Yamato- takeru legend are found in the K ojik i ( a . d . 712), the Nihonshoki ( a . d . 720) and an eighth-cen

tury gazetteer known as the Hitachi fudoki P h i l ip p i 1968233, n. 7; M o r r i s 1975 335). A ccording to these sources, Yamato- takeru

was born O- usu- no- mikoto the second son of the twelfth emperor, Keik5 and was destined for greatness from an early age. A tage sixteen, after demonstrating both his loyalty and his ferocity by killing his rebellious elder brother (Kojiki 9.1 Nihonshoki 8.18)1 he

was ordered by his father to subjugate the K umaso ( tribe, which had reiused to submit to imper ial author ity . T he Doyish O- usu-no- mikoto disguised himself as a girl w ith clothes prov ided by his aunt

Yamato- hime ( ) the high priestess of the Ise Shrine, and proceeded to the headquarters of the two powerful brothers who led theK umaso. A feast was in progress, and the K umaso brothers, taking afancy to the new “g ir lasked her to sit between them. When the festivi-

[260]



Y A MA T O- T A K E R U: A N “A R T H U R IA N ” HE RO 261

ties were at their height the disguised prince drew from his bosom a smallsword his aunt had given him and stabbed the elder Kumaso to death(Kojiki 2.80.1- 14).2 He then pursued the y ounger brother and stabbedhim through the buttocks. Before he died, the younger Kumaso bestowed upon his slayer the name he would be known by from then on:

Yamato- takeru {Kojiki 2.80.15).T he heros nex t and most impor tant assignment was to s ubdue the

unruly deities and people who inhabited what was then the eastern periphery of the realm (present-day Kanto and adjacent regions). T his t imehe was accompanied by a small band of lesser heroes, including Take-hiko ( Take- hi- no- muraji and Nana- tsuka- hagihis steward.3 Before setting out Yamato- takeru once again visited hisaunt, who bestowed on mm the most sacred and magical sword in Japanese tradition: Kusanagi (the “ brass Mower) discovered by thegod Susano- o m one of the tails of the dragon Yamata no Orocni

(Kojiki 1.19.20-21; Nihonshoki 1.51- 52)4and brought to earthby A materasu’s grandson N im g i as one of the three sacred symbols of the imperial household (Kojiki 1.38-39). Yamato- hime also gavehim a bag containing flint for starting fires, advising him to open it incase of emergency.

His first stop was in the land of Owari where he paid court tothe princess Miyazu- hime ( ) with w hom he had fallen inlove. Promising to marry her when he returned from his mission,

Yamato- takeru and his band set forth to subdue the Emis hi theEastern Barbarians.5

A t Sagami, in what is today Kanag awa Prefecture, he encountered achieftain who attempted, through deceit, to entrap mm in a grass fire.

W it h the aid of his magical sword, however, he mowed dow n the grass inthe immediate v icinity6. T hen, r emoving the fire- starting equipmentfrom the bag his aunt had given him, he kindled a backfire and therebymanaged to escape the trap (Kojiki 2.83.2). After killing the treacherouschief he crossed Sagami Bay7to what is now Chiba Prefecture, where hesubdued the Emishi.

A fter another series of adventures , Yamato- takeru f inally returned tohis princess in Owari, married her, and then attempted one final exploitbefore returning to Yamato and the palace of the emperor. Leaving hismagical sword behind, he set out to subdue with his bare hands the deitythat lived atop Mt. Ibuki on the western border of present- dayuifu Prefecture [Kojiki 2.86.1 —6). T his proved to be a fatal mistake. Ashe climbed the mountain he encountered a giant wmte boar, which hetook to be the deity’s messenger, and decided to delay killing it until he



had felled the deity himself. T he boar was the transformed god, however,and he caused a violent hails torm to strike Yamato- takeru as the herocontinued up the mountain. Yamato- takeru descended in a daze, andlater fell victim to a fatal illness (Kojiki 2.86).

Carried to the seashore near Otsu where he had left anothersword under a pine tree, Yamato- takeru soon passed away (Kojiki 2.87).8T he emperor was grief- stricken when he heard the sad news and orderedthat the dead hero be buried under a tumulus. But Yamato- takerus soul,in the form of a giant white bird, escaped from the tomb and flew towardthe beach (Kojiki 2.88.8).9 Stopping at two places along the way (wheretumuli were later built), the bird eventually reached Heav en.10 T huspassed the greatest of Japan’s legendary heroes.

262 C. S C O T T L I T T L E T O N

Y a m a t o - t a k e r u a n d A r t h u r

T he parallels between the career of Yamato- takeru and that of K ing A rthur are obvious. Like A rthur , Yamato- takeru is associated with two magical swords: the first, the one he uses to slay the Kumas o brothers,validates both his potential as a warrior and his capacity to lead (as with

A rthur and the “first Ex ca libur” w hich the young king- to- be pulls fromthe stone; see L i t t l e t o n 1982a). Kusanagi, the second and far moreimportant sword, is obtained from a woman with supernatural powersand becomes almost an alter ego ( Yo s h i d a 1979, 125; O b a y a s h i and

Y o s h i d a 1981, 67- 69), paralleling the relat ionship between A rthur andthe “second Ex cal ibur,” which he receives from the Lady of the L ake .11

A rmed with this latter sword, Yamato- takeru, again like A rthur, becomes the leader of a war band and defeats many enemies; among hisexploits is an expedition that takes him across the narrow straits betweenSagami and Chiba, just as A rt hur crosses the channel between Br itainand Gaul ( L i t t l e t o n and M a l c o r 1994, 62—66). B oth heroes eventuallysuccumb in the course of a conflict with a powerful adversary and dieafter giv ing up the magical sword to a female figure (Miyazu- hime; theLady of the Lake). Both heroes also have their more important magicalsword (or other weapon) secreted near the site of their impending death,

which is on the shore of a sea or lake; death only occurs after the swordis rediscovered. Finally, in both cases the hero is transported to theafterworld, one in the form of a bird (to heaven) and the other in a barge(to Avalon).

A dmittedly the details are different, and the Japanese tale reversesthe ending so that the hero gives up his magical sword before he receiveshis fatal affliction. Nor do the Japanese hero’s early adventures correspond to those of the young Arthur; the transvestite episode, for ex



Y A MA T O- T A K E RU: A N “A R T H U R IA N ” H E RO 263

ample, is far more redolent of T hor ,12 or even Achilles, than it is of A rthur. In the absence of histor ical or archeological evidence of a directconnection between the two traditions prior to a.d. 700 one could easily conclude that these curiously parallel tales found at opposite ends ofEurasia are simply reflections of an extremely widespread or perhapsuniversal hero myth, of the sort that R a n k (1952), R a g l a n (1937), andC a m p b e l l (1968) were so fond of analyzing .13

But there is, as I suggested at the outset, another possibility: that Yamato- takeru and A rthur are in fact independent expressions of a common, historically and geographically identifiable source (i.e., not a universal theme or myth), one that took shape somewhere other than in Western Europe or Japan. It is to this very real possibility that we turn next.

T h e S c y t h i a n C o n n e c t i o n

In a brilliant series of books and articles, Yoshida Atsuhiko has demonstrated — at least to this author ’s satisfaction — that a significant numberof symbols in Japanese mythology (e.g., the imperial regalia: the mirror,the sword, and the fer tility beads) were colored by the three Indo- European ideological “f unctions” identified by the late Georges Dumez il.14Hehypothesizes that this tripartite ideology, along with a variety of otherIndo- European traits, was carried to Japan by a band of horse ridersfrom the Asian mainland who are thought by some scholars to haveinvaded Japan via the Korean Peninsula and imposed themselves as aruling elite in the late fourth century a . d . (e.g., Y o s h i d a 1962, 1974,1977).15 It is, of course, r emotely possible that these equestrian nomads

were themselves Indo- Europeans; more probably , they were A ltaicspeakers of one sort or another — Huns, Puyo 16 etc. — who hadpreviously come into sustained contact with an Indo- European speakingcommunity in Central Asia and who had assimilated a significant portionof that community’s worldview, mythology, and heroic epos.

In any case, given the spatial and temporal parameters here (Central Asia circa a.d. 300- 400), there are only two Indo- European- speaking groups that could have been responsible for this impact: the Tocharians,

who lived in the T ar im Basin in the early centuries of the Chr is tian eraand the Alans, who formed the easternmost of the Northeast Iranianspeaking (or “Scytnian” nations, some of whom (called Wu- sun bythe Chinese)17 still lived within the borders of the Han Empire as late asthe time of Christ ( V e r n a d s k y 1943, 82-84). T he T ocharians, knownonly from their language, appear to have been a sedentary communitycomposed primarily of Buddhist monks. T hus, unless P u l l e y b l a n k iscorrect in sugges ting that the Yue- chi and other curious peoples



264 C. S C OT T L IT T L E T O N

noted in the Chinese annals and who lived as far east as Kansu Province were “nomadic T ochar ians ” (1966),18 the aforementioned Alans are thebest candidates for having had an Indo- European impact, directly orindirectly, on Japan.19

But before we consider the extent to which this impact may bereflected in the traditions sur rounding Y amato- takeru, we need to take acloser look at the Alans and their ethnic cousins, the Sarmatians, whoshared a similar culture and nomadic lifestyle.20 We also need to understand the connections between these two Central Asian peoples and thegenesis of the Arthurian legends.

A l a n s a n d S a r m a t i a n s , t h e N a r t s a n d t h e K n i g h t s

As B a c h r a c h has pointed out (19 3) the great major ity of the ancient A lan tribes migrated westward under pressure from their eastern neighbors, the Huns, cer tain of these Northeas t Iranian horse- riding groups,in alliance with various Germanic tribes, played an important role in thecollapse of the Roman Empire. Such movements left Alan settlements inmany parts of Western Europe, as evidenced by toponyms like Alengonand Allenville in France, Alano in Spain, and Landriano in northernItaly ( B a c h r a c h 19 3 136). Also indicative is the widespread popularityin Europe of such male names as Alan and Alain, an apparent reflectionof the fact that alan became synonymous with “fierce warr ior.”21 Indeed,many scholars now think that the basic medieval European style offighting — emphasizing heavily armored horsemen with lances and longslashing swords rather than disciplined, Roman- sty le infantry men with

jav elins and short stabbing swords — is derived from the steppe style of warfare, introduced to Europe by the A lans and their Sarmatian cousinsat the end of the Roman period ( N i c k e l 19 5 13-18).

It is now clear that the Alans and Sarmatians brought with themmore than simply a new style of fighting; and here we must consider thefolklore of the last surviving remnant of the ancient Alans, a peopleknown as the Ossetians.

Split between what is now the Russian Federated Republic andGeorgia in the north- central Caucasus reg ion, the Ossetians, who number about half a mill ion altogether (including emigres in Turkey andelsewhere),22 preserve a corpus of heroic sagas centering around the adventures of a band of heroes called the Nartah, or Narts.23 T heir leader,named Batraz,24 was the proud possessor of an Excalibur- like magicalsword obtained with the help of a seeress called Satana, “T he Mothe r ofa Hundred Sons” (that is, the ancestress of the Narts [ C o l a r u s s o 1989,4] ) and the aunt of the young hero. A rmed w ith this mig hty weapon,



Y A MA T O- T A K E RU: A N “A R T H U R IA N ” H E RO 265

Batraz avenged his father’s death and then led a band of his fellow Nartson many wonderful adventures. T hey also spent many hours feasting andboasting of their conquests and fighting abilities.

A ll good things mus t come to an end, however. After slaughter ingvast numbers of his own people in a climactic internecine battle and afterresisting all the afflictions that God could throw at him, Batraz took pityon the handful of survivors that remained. He now acquiesced, he toldthem, in G od’s decision that his time to die had come. Death was impossible, however, unless his magical sword was thrown into the sea, so heordered the surviv ing Nar ts to consign it to the waves. A t first they werereluctant to do so, the sword being so heavy that only Batraz could wieldit with ease. So they hid the weapon and reported back that they hadfollowed his instructions. Batraz, however, knew what would happen

when the sw ord entered the water, and soon realized that he had beendeceived. Finally, with great effort, the Narts managed to throw thesword into the water, and as the blade began to sink the sea roiled andturned blood- red; hurr icanes raged and lig htning bolts streaked acrossthe sky. Once all of this was reported to the dying leader, he willinglypassed on to his reward ( D u m e z i l 1930, 69).25

One need not be a specialist in Arthurian literature to recognize theparallels between the foreg oing tale and the famous episode in S ir T homas Malory’s Morte D yA rthur wherein the dying king asks Sir Bedivereto throw Excalibur into the sea ( B a i n e s 1962, 500). Just as in the Nartsaga, the companion is loath to dispose of the magical sword and attempts to deceive his master; moreover, once the sword is finally flunginto the water a prodigious thing happens: a hand reaches up from thedepths, grasps the wondrous weapon, flourishes it, and then slowly sinksbeneath the surface.

T he firs t scholar to point out this curious parallel was the eminentFrench medievalist Joel G ri s w ar d (1969, 1973). Shortly thereafter Idiscovered a historical connection between the ancient Sarmatians andRoman Britain ( L i t t l e t o n and T h o m a s 1978). In a . d . 175 at the conclusion of the Marcomannian War in what is now Hungary, the Romanemperor Marcus Aurelius posted 5,500 newly impressed Sarmatiancataphracti (heavy auxiliary cavalry) to Hadrian’s Wall at the northernlimit of effective R oman control in B rita in.26 Few if any of theseSarmatians, who belonged to a tribe known as the Iazyges, managed toreturn to their steppe homeland north of the Danube, as it lay outside thefrontiers of the empire. When their enlistment was up they were settledat a cavalry fort called Bremetennacum Veteranorum near the modernvillage of Ribcheste r in western L ancashire.27



266 C . S C O T T L I T T L E T O N

T he quasi- historical K ing A rthur, the dux bellorum whose descendants won the battle of B adon Hil l (ca. a.d. 500) who seems to havecampaigned on the Continent, and who may also have been calledRiothamus (A she 1981; 1985, 96) was probably a leader of this community in the years immediately f ollowing the Roman w ithdraw al.28 Morerecently, my colleague Linda A. Malcor (nee Peterson) has demonstratedthat the Alans who settled in Gaul brought with them their own versionof the same Northeast Iranian heroic tradition described above( L i t t l e t o n and M a l c o r 1994 26-39). P e t e r s o n has also brought tolight the strong possibility that the continental figure Lancelot, whosename she derives from A lanus a Lot, or “the Alan of Lot,” is thematically cognate to both Batraz and Art hur (1985).29

Let us now return to the Yamato- takeru saga and see how it compares to the Ossetians heroic tale and, by ex tension, to that of the ancientNortheast Iranians/Scythians.

Y a m a t o - t a k e r u , B a t r a z , A r t h u r , a n d L a n c e l o t : R e f l e c t i o n s o n a

C o m m o n S o u r c e

In some respects, Yamato- takeru more closely resembles Batraz than hedoes Arthur. Like Batraz, the Japanese hero has a propensity for violentoutbursts, in some cases directed against his own people (as when heferociously slaughters his elder brother).30 In this respect, both heroeshave less in common with A rthur than with Lancelot, who is also aferocious fighter and constantly attacks the other knights of the RoundTable (cf. L i t t l e t o n and M a l c o r 1994 103- 104).31 Other featuressupport such a link, despite the absence of a sword- related death scene inthe Lancelot corpus. For example, the relationship between Lancelot andhis foster mother, the Dame du Lac, almost exactly parallels the relationship between Batraz and his aunt Satana and between Yamato- takeruand Yamato- hime. Moreov er, one of Lancelot ’s magic items is a mirror;as M a e n c h e n - H e l f e n has pointed out (1973 340—42), the anc ientSarmatians were wont to carry mirrors and to place them in tombs (cf.S u l i m i r s k i 1970 120). Although mirrors do not play an explicit part inthe Yamato- takeru legend, a possible tie between the ancient Japanesetradition and that of the Alano- Sarmatians is suggested by the presenceof a mirr or in the aforementioned imperial regalia.32

In any case, Yamato- takeru, A rthur, Lancelot, and Batraz all appearto derive from a common Northeast Iranian heroic — and perhaps ultimately divine — prototype (cf. D u m e z i l 1978, 21). Table 1 summarizesthe evidence.

T he pluses in the table outnumber the minuses 43 to 13 and I



Y A MA T O- T A K E RU : A N “A R T H U R IA N ” HE RO 267

T a bl e 1

Motif A r thur L ancelot Batraz Yamato-

takeru

Possesses (or has access to) magical sword + + + +

Receives two successive swords + + - +

Receives at least one sword from a seeress/priestess + + + +

Sword bestower is a close kinswoman - + + +

She and/or hero is associated with water + + + -

Leads war band + + + +

Crosses a narrow body of water + + - +

Suffers mortal wound (or illness) in keyepisode

+ - + +

Kills own people + + + +

Sword hidden by comrade(s) + - + -

Dies by the sea + - + +

Dies after giving (or ordering companion[s]to give) a sword to a female + - + +

Sword consigned to water + - + -

Physical remains miraculously transported

to another realm+ - - +

submit that the correspondences are too specific to permit an explanationin terms of poly genesis. Rather, what emerges rather clearly is the ex tentto which the surviving Ossetic/Alanic variant links the otherwise independent traditions on the eastern and western peripheries of Eurasia.One sees the ties even in certain apparently minor details: not only doboth Yamato- takeru and Batraz receive their magical sword fr om a mystically endowed kinswoman, but the kinswoman is also explicitly descr ibed as the heros aunt. T he documented historical connections between the peoples in question make it even less likely that the commonfeatures of the various heroes are the result of mere chance.33 T he factthat Ossetia is geographically intermediate between Western Europe andJapan may in part account for the fact that Batraz is thematically intermediate between the European reflexes of this heroic tradition and that

which surfaced in Japan.34T able 2 summarizes the proposed “genealogy” here:



268 C. S C OT T L I T T L E T O N

T a bl e 2

I— — ^ I A r thur Lancelot <— Batr az Yamato- takeru

In sum, I suggest that both Japanese and European legendry weresubject to Northeast Iranian cultural influences at approximately thesame period of time (from the second to the fifth centuries a .d .), and thatthis is why the legends of Yamato- takeru have such an A rthurian feel tothem.35 Celticists who follow the lead of Roger Sherman Loomis (1927) in asserting that the A rthurian legends are totally embedded in the ancient Celtic tradition must now come to terms with the evidence we haveuncovered relative to the real roots of these legends, just as Japanologistsmust rethink the ultimate provenance of their most famous legendaryhero. T he end result will be an appreciation of an important ancientlink — indirect though it may have been — between the civilizations thatarose in Europe and Japan circa a.d. 500.

N O T E S

* T his paper is an ex panded, Eng lish- language v ersion of an essay s cheduled to appear in a Festschrift honoring Professor Yoshida Atsuhiko of Gakushuin University, Tokyo. The

volume will be published by Seidosha. I would like to thank Professor Yoshida for his astutecomments and suggestions, and Yoshida Mizuho for her help with the Japanese transcriptions. I also thank Victor H. Mair, Linda A. Malcor, and Professor Wellington K. K. Chanof Occidental College for their most helpful comments and suggestions. Finally, I amdeeply indebted to the Japan- United States Educational Commiss ion for awarding me aFulbr ig ht research grant in 19 94 which gr eatly f acilitated the preparat ion of this essay.

1 . T h e e dit io ns o f the Kojiki and the Nihonshoki utilized in this paper are, respectively, those of P hilippi (1968) and A s to n (1972).

2. T here is a curious parallel to this episode in the Norse tex t Elder Edda. After thegiant T hy rm steals his hammer, T hor, advised by the clever Lok i, disguises himse lf as thegoddess Fre yja, T hy r m’s would- be bride. A t the appropriate moment the Norse god throwsoff his disguise, retrieves his weapon, and kills T hy rm. See Dav ids on 1964 44—45; see also

Y o s hi da 1979 (1 16- 29 ), w hic h discusses the par al le ls bet wee n Y amato- takeru and a var ie ty

of Indo- European heroes, including T hor.3. S ee L i t t l e t o n 1 9 83 74. T he names of Ya mato- taker u’s companions are specifi

cally mentioned in the Nihonshoki (7.23); howev er, according to the Kojiki (2.82.4), the hero does not seem to have considered his band an army, since he plaintiv ely asks, “W hy did he[the Emperor] dispatch me . . . wi thout g iving me troops?” T his complaint is not recordedin the Nihonshoki.

4. T he sword was originally called Mura- kumo or “Assembled Clouds”{Nihonshoki 1.26; see also L i t t l e to n 1981 272.

5. Most likely the ancestors of the A inu, a lthough some scholars believe that they we re s imply a back w ar d tr ibe of e thn ic Ja panes e (P hi li pp i 196 8 469).

6. T he name “Grass Mow er ” was taken from this episode. See Kojiki (2.83.4). In the Niho nshoki (7.24) it is said that the famous weapon wie lded itselt. Fhe latter tex t also locates



Y A MA T O- T A K E R U A N “A R T H U R IA N ” HE RO 269

the episode in Suruga rather than Sagami.7. Dur ing the crossing, Yamato- taker u arouses the anger of the deity that lives in the

bay. T o appease the wr athful k ami, a young princess who was trav eling with the herosacrifices herse lf to the waves so that his miss ion mig ht continue. Deeply moved, Yamato-takeru laments the woman’s death for the rest of his short life {Kojiki 2.84.1- 13). Thisfamous episode, unrelated to any specific Arthurian motif, marks a turning point in

Y amat o- take ru’s career. From that poin t on he becomes incr eas ingly introspective, and hissubsequent adventures involve for the most part encounters with malevolent deities — as if he were attempting to even the score and avenge his s avior’s self- sacrifice. See Mo r r is 1975, 8 .

8. Ots u and Nobono ( ) the site of Yamato- take rus death, are both inpresent- day Mie Prefecture.

9. The Nihonshoki (7.31) gives the direction as “towards the Land of Y ama to.5510. Or so it would appear from the Kojiki: “From that place [the white bird] again

soared through the heavens and flew away” (2.88.30), although the text does not say pre

cisely where Ya mato- take ru’s final journe y ended. However , the Nihonshoki (7.32) statesspecifically that “at last it [the bird] soared aloft to Heaven, and there was nothing buriedbut his [ Yamato- taker u’s] clothing and official cap.”

1 1 . See M o r r i s 1975 (337), who explicitly compares Kusanagi to “the magical sword Ex calibur ,” as well as the role played by Y amato- hime to that played by the L ady of theLake in the legends of King Arthur.

12. See note 2.13. Despite his insightful comments on the parallels between Excalibur and Kusanagi,

and between Y amato- hime and the Lady of the La ke (see note 11) Morris , expl ic i t ly invok ing Ca mpbel l’s “univer sal my th” in a note (337), goes on to assert that “in some ways,

Yamato- take ru is a standard folk hero that we can find in almos t every culture on theboundary between legend and history” (1975, 2).

14. These include, in hierarcnical order, ultimate sover eignty (first function), the exer

cise of physical prowess (second function), and the promotion of plant, animal, and human fer tility (third f unction), and are reflected in most ancient Indo- European mythologies; see,for example, D u m e z il 1958. For a discussion of Dumezil’s ideas, see L i t t l e t o n 1982b.

15. A nother scholar who has contributed significantly to this research is O b a y a s h i T aryo (e.g., 1960, 1 977). T he first to suggest that Japan was invaded by horse- riding nomads from the Asian mainland was E g a mi Namio (1964, 1967). See also L e d y a r d 1975 and L i t t l e t o n 1985.

16. L e d y a r d (1975 , 233- 35) makes a goo d case, based on the K ore an ev idence, for the view that the bulk of the horse riders were Puyo, whose immediate homeland lay in northeast Manchuria along the Sungari River. After a.d. 372 the kings of Paekche, thesouthernmost of the three ancient Korean kingdoms and almost certainly the staging areafor the invas ion of Japan, have Puyo- sounding names.

17. Mos t likely a phonological r endering of the widespread self- identification term Oss;

cf. the Ossetians (A lans) of the north- central Caucasus (see below). A var iant form of thisterm is As (or A z , as in the Sea of Azov: “Sea of the A z”.

18. For a more detailed discuss ion of this matter , see L i t t l e t o n 1981,380, n. 34. Some Indo- European- looking burials — that is, single interment s under large, kurgan-\ike

tumuli (cf. G imb u t a s 1970) _ dating f rom the middle of the first mille nnium B.C. have recently come to light in northwest China (Mair 1995; Elizabeth Barber and Victor H.Mair, personal communications) and may possibly be Pulleyblank’s peripatetic Tocharians,although the ethnicity of the skeletons is apparently s till unresolved. A for thcoming issue ofThe Journal of Indo-European Studies, edited by Victor H. Mair, will be devoted to thissuoject.

19. T his identification is reinforced by the fact that the ancient Scythian origin myth,as related by Her odotus (4.5—6), also involves three sacred objects that fal l fr om the sky, in



270 C. S C OT T L IT T L E T O N

this case a cup (first func tion), a battle- ax (second function), and a yoked plow (t hirdfunction). For a discussion of the extent to which this Northeast Iranian myth is reflected in

the Japanese account of the imperial regalia, see L i t t l e t o n 1982b, 260.20. For an overv iew of what is know n about the Sar matians, see S u l imir s k i 1970.2 1 . As in the Breton expression “cet homme est violent et allain” (B a c h r a c h 1973,

119).22. For a comprehens ive account of moder n Ossetia, see R o t h s t e in 1954.23. T he Ossetic Nar t legends have been collected over the years by a number of schol

ars, including Vs. M i l l e r (18 81) A dolf D i r r (1925), and, most importantly, the late Georges D ume zil (e.g., 1930, 1965, and 1978). A colleague, Jo hn Colarusso of McMas terUniversity, is currently translating a major corpus of Circassian Nart sagas. When completed, this text will add an important new dimension to our knowledge of this most important body of folklore.

24. His name is closely connected wi th that of the ancient Scy thian god Don Betty r, w ho seems to hav e bee n as soc iated w it h the Don Ri v er ( D u me z il 1978 , 214—16).

25. T he Ossetic text, as translated by D u me z il (1930, 69), states simply that “il [Batraz] re ndit le dernier soupiralt hough the implica tion here is that his mor ta l remains,if not his soul, remained in the tomb his followers prepared for him.

26. T he locus classicus for the arrival of the Sarmatians in Britain and the events thatled up to their being assigned there is the account of the Marcomannian War by the thirdcentury a .d . Roman historian Dio Cassius (72.22.16; C a r y 1927, 35 ) w ritte n about fifty

ye ars af te r the fact. See also S u l im ir s k i 1970, 175-76.27. For detailed archaeological descr iptions of the Sa rmatian com munity at

Ribchester , w hich seems to have persisted until the end of the Roma n period in a.d. 410, see Richm ond 1945 (15- 29 ) Edwar ds and We bs te r 1985-87 .

28. As M a l o n e long ago pointed o ut (1925), the name A rt hur does not appear to be Celtic in origin and most probably comes from the gentilic name of the first Roman commander to whom these Sarmatian auxiliaries were assigned: Lucius Artorius Castus, Prefect

of the V I Leg ion Victrix . A Dalmatian by birth, A rtorius seems to have been a careerofficer; like the Arthur of legend and Riothamus, he also campaigned in Gaul, thus reinforcing the identification.

29. Lik e A rt hur, Lance lot also possesses two swords: the one he receives from theLady of Lake and the one he later picks up from a stone altar. It would be impossible hereeven to mention, let alone discuss, all of the evidence that Malcor and I have brought tobear on this and other matters relating to what we have dubbed “the Sarmatian connection”(more properly, the Northeast Iranian connection). For example, we suggest that the HolyGrail legends, so closely tied to the Arthurian corpus, are also rooted, at least in part, in theancient Northeast Iranian tradition ( L i t t l e t o n 1979; P e t e r s o n 1986; L i t t l e t o n and M a lc o r 1994, 209- 80). T his suggestion is supported both by the prominent role played bycups in Scythian mythology (e.g., the aforementioned account of the sacred cup that fellfr om Heaven [ n . 19]) and by the importance in the Ossetic sagas of a magical cup (or

cauldron) called the Nartaeamongae, to guard which several Nart heroes embark upon whatamounts to a “quest ” as it turns out, Batraz is the only one brave enough for the job(D u me z il 1930, 58- 59, 136- 37). Another link between the two tra ditions is the ancient A lan practice of worshipping swords thrust in the earth (Cf. Ammianus Marcellinus 31.4.22[ Ro lf e 1939, 395]). A lthoug h there is no attested evidence that the Alans ritually w ithdrewsuch swords, the famous episode in which the young Arthur withdrew an embedded sword(the “first” Excalibur) and thereby validated his right to the kingship suggests that such ar i tual — most l ikely a warr ior ini tia t ion r i tual— probably existed (L i t t l e t o n 1982a, 53- 67; L i t t l e t o n and M a l c o r 1994, 181- 93). I s hould emphasize that neither of these elements _ the quest for a magical cup and the presence of an embedded sw ord (save for a curious episode in Kojiki 1.35.8 in which a sword is embedded in a wave, point up) — arepresent anywhere in J apanese my thology , let alone the Yamato- taker u legend.



Y A MA T O- T A K E RU: A N “A R T H U R IA N ” HE RO 271

30. According to Kojiki 2.79.6, Y amato- takeru surprised his elder brother in the privy , where he “grasped him and crushed him, then pulled of f his limbs , and wr apping them in

a straw mat, threw them away.”3 1 . Malcor and I strongly suspect that, after the A rthur and Lancelot legends merged

into a single tr adition ( c a .1100), whatever sword- related death scene that might haveformed part of the latter corpus was consciously edited out ( L it t le to n and M a lc o r 1994105). T he motiv e here seems to have been to differ entiate between two figures who were, atbottom, reflexes of the same Alano- Sarmatian prototype. T his is underscored by the factthat both are effectively “married” to the same woman (Guinevere), and that Lancelot is theonly knight of the Round Table who has the right to wield Excalibur (L it t l e t o n andM a l c o r 1 9 9 4 105). Moreover, although he is consistently portrayed as less ferocious than Lancelot, Arthur does kill his own people at the battle of Camlann shortly before his owndeath.

32. A nother link of this sort — one that suggests a connection between the two tr aditions but that does not directly involv e Ya mato- tak eru— can be seen in the legend of

Tetsuj in or “ Iron M an .” As Obay ashi has demonstrated, Japanese folklore is replete with stories about a f igure who, in his youth, is cov ered wi th iron and thus, save for a singlespot (usually an eye), rendered invulnerable (1975). Batraz, too, is an “iron man.” As a

y outh he im plored the div ine smi th K ur da la g on to encase hi m in steel (D um e z il 19 30, 54) . It is said that the resulting invulnerability is what allows him to slaughter his fellow Narts

with impunity , and is what accounts for the fact that God alone can cause his death. Again, Yamato- takeru does not share this trait, but the fact that both Ossetic and Japanese folk loreknow such a figure reinforces the probability of an ancient connection between the twotraditions in question (cf. L it t le t o n 1982a, 75-76).

33. T he fact that Lancelo t more closely resembles Batraz (again, except for the deathscene) than he does A rt hur seems a reflection of the point in time w hen his immediateprototype, the “Ala n of L ot” (see above) arrived in Western Europe. T he Alans, it will berecalled, arrived in Gaul in the early fifth century, whereas the Sarmatians who brought the

prototype of A rthur to Bri ta in arr ived in a .d. 175. See L i t t l e to n and Ma lc or 1994 103- 108.

34. For a discussion of the parallels between Batraz and Yamato- takeru, fr amed in thecontext of Dum ez il’s concept of the “second function” hero (e.g., 1983) see Yo sh ida 1962, 29-35; 1979 116-29.

35. Chinese legendry also seems to have been subjected to a Northeast Iranian inf luence during the period in question. As this essay goes to press, it has come to my attentionthat the sword- thrown-into- the- water motir is reflected in an eighth- century a .d . populartale about a hero called W u T zu- hsii. After W u T zu- hsii throws his sword into the water,

the god of the riv er . . . roiled the waters in a great and fr othing frenzy . T he fish and turtles were thrown into a panic and burrowed into the mud. Dragons raced along the

waves and leaped out of the water. T he river god held up the sword in this hand . . . .( M a i r 1 9 8 3 141)

A lthoug h the rest of the W u T zu- hsii story does not conform to the “A rthur ian” model, theforegoing account, which includes both roiling and a supernatural hand, is in fact anamalgam of the prodigious events that occur when Ex calibur and Batr az’s magical sword areconsigned to the water (see above). I am indebted to my colleague Victor H. Mair for callingthis passage to my attention.

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