The three-legged crow is a creature found in various East Asian mythologies and arts. It has also been found on ancient coins from Lycia and Pamphylia.
The earliest forms of the tripedal crow are found in present-day China. Evidence of early sun-bird motifs or totemic items excavated around 5000 BC in the Yangtze River delta area. This bird-sun totem heritage was observed in the later Yangshao and Longshan cultures.
The Chinese have several versions of stories about crows and the sun. But the most popular representation and myth of the song of the sun is that of Yangwu or Jinwu, the “golden song.”
1. Japan
In Japanese mythology, this flying creature is a bird or a jungle crow called Yatagarasu (eight-keyed crow), and the appearance of the great bird is interpreted as evidence of the will of Heaven or divine intervention in human affairs.
Although Yatagarasu is mentioned in several places in Shinto, depictions are mainly seen in Edo woodblock art, which dates back to the early 1800s. Although not celebrated as it is today, the crow is a mark of rebirth and rejuvenation; the animal that historically cleaned up after great battles symbolizes rebirth after such tragedy.
Yatagarasu as a body god is a specific symbol of guidance. This great crow was sent from heaven as a guide for Emperor Jimmu on his initial journey from the region that would become Kumano to what would become Yamato (Yoshino and then Kashihara).
It is generally accepted that Yatagarasu is an incarnation of Taketsunimi no mikoto, but none of the surviving early documentary records are so specific. In more than one case, Yatagarasu appears as a three-legged crownot in Kojiki but in WamyÅ RuijushÅ.
Both the Japan Football Association and, subsequently, its managed teams, such as the Japan national football team, use the Yatagarasu symbol in their emblems and insignia, respectively, and the winner of the Emperor’s Cup also has the honor of wearing the Yatagarasu emblem the following season.
The team that created Geometry Dash, GeoStorm, created a level named after Yatagarasu, which is currently the seventh most difficult level in the game. The solar crow in Chinese mythology Mural from the Han dynasty found in Henan province depicting a three-legged crow.
The most popular representation and myth of a sanzuwu is that of a sun crow called Yangwu (Chinese: pinyin: yángwū) or more commonly known as JÄ«nwū (Chinese: pinyin: jÄ«nwū) or “golden crow.” Although described as a crow or raven, it is usually red in color rather than black.
According to folklore, there were originally ten sun crows that settled on ten separate suns. They perched on a red mulberry tree called Fusang (Chinese: pinyin: fúsÄng), which literally means “the leaning mulberry tree,” in the East, at the foot of the Valley of the Sun. This mulberry tree was said to have many mouths that opened from its branches. Each day, one of the sun crows would be chosen to travel around the world in a chariot driven by Xihe, the “mother” of the suns. As soon as one sun crow returned, another would set off across the sky.
According to Shanhaijing, the sun crows loved to eat two herbs of immortality, one called Diri (Chinese: pinyin: dìrì), or “earth sun,” and the other Chunsheng (Chinese: pinyin: chūnshÄ“ng), or “spring growth.” The sun crows often descended from the sky to the earth and feasted on these herbs, but Xihe did not like this, so he covered their eyes to prevent them from doing so.
Folklore also held that, around 2170 BC, the ten sun crows came out on the same day, causing the world to burn; Houyi, the heavenly archer, saved the day by shooting down all but one of the sun crows. The three-legged bird (i.e., tripedal) is a mythical creature that appears in many traditional legends in Central Asia, East Asia, Egypt, and North Africa.
In Japan, although there is no description in ancient historical records stating that Yatagarasu was specifically three-legged, the crow has been depicted as such in various places in shrines, including Yatagarasu Jinja in Nara, Abeno Oji Shrine on the Kumano Road, where Yatagarasu is enshrined, and at the Yakuoin Yukiiji Temple on Mount Takao (since 733) near the capital of Tokyo. The traditions of the shrines or temples clearly establish that the crow has three legs.
The word Yatagarasu has been translated as “eight-legged crow” (i.e., giant crow) or and is considered to mean Supreme Divine Crow (or Perfect) (the number “eight” in Japanese numerology has the meanings of “many” or “a multitude,” or “perfect” or “supreme”) or simply “big crow.”
2. The Legend of Yatagarasu
According to the ancient Japanese chronicles of Kojiki and Nihonshoki and the Shinto canon, this great crow was sent from heaven as a guide for Emperor Jimmu on his initial journey from the region that would become Kumano to what would become Yamato. Based on this account, the appearance of the great bird has traditionally been interpreted by the Japanese as evidence of divine intervention in human affairs.
Tracing the places and origins of the story, we can imagine that Jimmu’s brothers were originally born in Takachiho, the southern part of Miyazaki Prefecture, Kyushu (we can note that the theme of descending upon Mount Takachiho evokes the Korean custom of declaring sacred or divine authority, thus suggesting possible connections with the continent). When they decided to move eastward, they found that their location was unsuitable for ruling the entire country. Itsuse was killed in the battle that followed.
The Kumano location of the Yatagarasu sighting is significant. Yatagarasu is historically considered the ancestor of the Kamo clan, the high priests of the Kamo-wake ikazuchi jinja. Among the other human descendants of this kami, the Nihongi and the Kogoshui also mention the Agata-nushi of Katsurano and the Tonomori Be.
According to sources from the Kamo Mioya Jinja Monastery
“The Kamomioya Shrine is located downstream from the Kamo River and is therefore popularly called Shimogamo Jinja, or “Shrine downstream from Kamo.” There is another shrine called “Kami gamo Jinja” or the Shrine upstream from Kamo. The two shrines. Both are called “Kamo sha” (Kamo Shrines). They are closely related.
The Aoi Matsuru (festival) procession begins at the former Imperial Palace in Kyoto, enters the Shimogamo Shrine, and then the Kamogamo Shrine. In the main shrine in the west, Taketsumemi-no-mikoto is enshrined. In the main shrine in the east, Tamayori-hime-no-mikoto is enshrined.
Origin of the Yatagarasu Shrine
The origin of the shrine is not known with certainty, but it is said that in ancient times there was a modest shrine dedicated to the patron god of the Kamo clan. It is also said that the people of the Kamo clan are the incarnations of “Yatagarasu,” or three-legged crows that guided the first Emperor Jinmu in the Kumano Mountains to Kashihara, where the emperor settled and declared the founding of the Japanese nation 660 years before the common era.
After the capital was moved to Kyoto, this shrine, together with the Kami gamo Jinja shrine, became the shrine of the patron gods of the capital. The Kamo no Agatanushi family served as priests for the shrine, and the Imperial Household worshipped the gods of the shrines since after the founding of the capital in Kyoto and sent one of the imperial princesses (daughter of the emperor) to serve the gods. After Princess Uchiko of Emperor Saga served the gods, this system lasted for 400 years over 35 generations.
In the haiden of Hongu-taisha, on January 7 according to the lunar calendar, there is the Hoinshinji. An image of Yatagarasu, called go-o-no-shimpu (popularly gyu-o), both sides of which have been purified by a pine torch lit with pure fire and held over a tub of pure water, is presented to the shrine by a priest; subsequent prints of that image are distributed to devotees throughout the country.
It is believed that if a person burns a gyu-o and swallows the ashes, the statement they make must be true, otherwise they will vomit blood or even die. The aforementioned practice of burning a gyu-o is similar to Taoist practices in China and is still widely practiced in Chinese communities overseas outside of China.
“At Nachi-jinja, on January 1, early in the morning, a priest brings water from the waterfall with a yatagarasu-bo, a black cap representing a highly stylized crow. One of the noritos sung during the ceremony before the shrine is “strictly esoteric, sung in a low voice, and known only to the priests.”
The shimpu made on this occasion are “used as amulets for safe childbirth, or stuck in rice fields to prevent insects from damaging crops, but in the old days they were widely used for drawing up contracts, with no witness required for a contract written on the back of a shimpu.”
Given the historical importance of Kumano as a center for the development of Japanese religion, the emergence of Yatagarasu in the Kumano area attests to its centrality and influence in the esoteric sect of shugendo and the Yamabushi mountain cult. Some religious schools equate Yatagarasu with Tengu-karasu and consider him a “great master of nothing to fear.”
The most famous “sage” of the mountain was En no Gyoja—called the Father of Shugendo—who was from the Kamo clan. The fourth section of the text Shozan engi (Origins of Various Mountains) is believed to be the diary recording the travels of En no Gyoja.
3. Other three-legged creatures in Chinese mythology
In Chinese mythology, there are other three-legged creatures besides the crow, for example, the yu, a three-legged turtle that causes malaria. The three-legged crow symbolizing the sun has a yin-yang counterpart in the chánchú, a three-legged toad symbolizing the moon (along with the moon rabbit).
According to an ancient tradition, this toad is the transformed lunar deity Chang’e, who stole the elixir of life from her husband Houyi, the archer, and fled to the moon where she was turned into a toad. Xi Wangmu (Queen Mother of the West) is also said to have three green birds (Chinese: pinyin: qÄ«ngniÇŽo) that collected food for her, and in Han period religious art they were depicted as three-legged. In the Yongtai tomb dating from the Tang dynasty, when the Cult of Xi Wangu flourished, the birds are also shown to have three legs.
