The Tale of Tawara Toda

This tale relates to the hero Tawara Toda, whose given name is Fujiwara Hidesato. He

became known as My Lord Bag of Rice, which does not make sense until you know his

story. Throughout this story, I will refer to him as Tawara in the Japanese tradition of family

name.

Tawara wanted adventure and he headed towards the Seta-no-Karashi Bridge located on

Lake Biwa. When he arrived at the bridge, he came across a large serpent, who was resting

on the bridge. Tawara felt no fear of the large serpent and so he approached. To his surprise,

the serpent then took on a human form.

The serpent was the deity Ryujin, who was impressed by the lack of fear that Tawara had

shown to his serpent form. As he saw such bravery, Ryujin asked for Tawara’s help in

dealing with Seta, a creature that was a giant centipede. Seta was attacking the Royal

palace every night and stealing members of Ryujin’s family and his servants from the Royal

Court. Seta’s home was on Mount Mikami.

As he was looking for adventure, Tawara jumped at the chance to help Ryujin and also fulfil

his wish for adventure. Happy to have found a man brave enough to face the fearsome Seta,

Ryujin took Tawara back to the Royal Palace to await Seta’s next attack.

Now, when a man goes on an adventure, especially one that could involve battle with a

gigantic centipede, you would be forgive for expecting that man to be carry a large number

of weapons for use in battle. However, Tawara was armed with only his bow and three

arrows, which in anyone’s book is not good preparation for battle with a creature of legend.

As he had every night before, Seta arrived at the Royal Palace to attack Ryujin’s people.

Tawara immediately fired two of his arrows, but centipedes have hard skin and they

harmlessly bounced off causing Seta no harm at all. They were no more irritating to Sera

than a fly would be bouncing off a man’s skin. Tawara had to think about his plan as he only

had one arrow left.

Luckily, Tawara was well versed in the old tales, and he remembered that he had heard tell

centipedes, such as Seta, had a weakness. That weakness was that human saliva which

was deadly to centipedes. Before firing his final arrow, Tawara licked the arrow’s head. He

then took aim and fired at Seta, who immediately fell dead as the Tawara’s saliva made

contact with him.

Ryujin was ecstatic that Seta had been defeated and he threw a huge feast in Tawara’s

honour. He asked Tawara if he would remain at the Royal Palace with him, but Tawara

declined saying that he wished to return to his home. Ryujin insisted that Tawara must take

gifts with him, as he had performed a great service for Ryujin. Tawara, a humble man, tried

to decline but Ryujin was insistent.

Tawara was presented with the following items.

A large bronze bell.

A bag of rice, which would never ben empty, no matter how much of it was used.

A roll of silk which would never get shorter, no matter how much was cut from the roll.

A cooking pot, which would make delicious food no matter what was put into it.

Tawara was a generous man, and he donated the bell to the Mii-dera Temple, where it would

boom out over the surrounding area. Tawara also become very rich as a result of this never-

ending gifts and earnt the name My Lord Bag of Rice due to his bag of rice which never

emptied.