I declare with the great ritual, the heavenly ritual, which was bestowed on him at the time when, by the WORD of the Sovran’s dear progenitor and progenitrix, who divinely remain in the plain of high heaven, they bestowed on him the region under heaven, saying: 

    “Let the Sovran GRANDCHILD’S augustness tranquilly rule over the
    country of fresh spikes which flourishes in the midst of the
    reed-moor as a peaceful region.”

    When ...  Izanami ... had deigned to bear the many hundred
    myriads of gods, she also deigned to bear her dear youngest
    child of all, the Fire-producer god, ... and said: 

“My dear elder brother’s augustness shall rule the upper country; I will rule the lower country,” she deigned to hide in the rocks; and having come to the flat hills of darkness, she thought and said:  “I have come hither, having borne and left a bad-hearted child in the upper country, ruled over by my illustrious elder brother’s augustness,” and going back she bore other children.  Having borne the water-goddess, the gourd, the river-weed, and the clay-hill maiden, four sorts of things, she taught them with words, and made them to know, saying:  “If the heart of this bad-hearted child becomes violent, let the water-goddess take the gourd, and the clay-hill maiden take the river-weed, and pacify him.”

In consequence of this I fulfil his praises, and say that for the things set up, so that he may deign not to be awfully quick of heart in the great place of the Sovran GRANDCHILD’S augustness, there are provided bright cloth, glittering cloth, soft cloth, and coarse cloth, and the five kinds of things; as to things which dwell in the blue-sea plain, there are things wide of fin and narrow of fin, down to the weeds of the shore; as to LIQUOR, raising high the beer-jars, filling and ranging in rows the bellies of the beer-jars, piling the offerings up, even to rice in grain and rice in ear, like a range of hills, I fulfil his praises with the great ritual, the heavenly ritual.

Izanagi, after shedding tears over his consort, whose death was caused by the birth of the fire-god, slays the fire-god, and follows her into the Root-land, or Hades, whereupon begins another round of wonderful stories of the birth of many gods.  Among these, though evidently out of another cycle of legends, is the story of the birth of the three gods—­Fire-Shine, Fire-Climax and Fire-Fade, to which we have already referred.

The fire-drill mentioned in the “Kojiki” suggests easily the same line of thought with the myths of cosmogony and theogony, and it is interesting to note that this archaic implement is still used at the sacred temples of Ise to produce fire.  After the virgin priestesses perform the sacred dances in honor of local deities the water for their bath is heated by fires kindled by heaps of old harai or amulets made from temple-wood bought at the Mecca of Japan.  It is even probable that the retention of the fire-drill in the service of Shint[=o] is but a survival of phallicism.