Since Touhou does take inspiration from some Japanese folktales, I?d like to see if some thingsfrom
a certain story?ll appear in the series at some point :
Anyway, this post reminded me of something :
I was just reminded of something I was supposed to connect before but never did.
So, I think it's pretty well-established at this point that Eirin is supposed to be Omoikane. In CiLR 1, Eirin explains that the Watatsuki sisters are distant relatives of hers; "one was the wife of a grandnephew of mine, while the other was married to the son of another grandnephew". I had always meant to explicitly connect the dots here.
First of all, I'm going to change this translation since it isn't "another" grandnephew, it's the same guy. With the clean assumption that Toyohime and Yorihime are supposed to be Toyotamahime and Tamayorihime respectively, it's actually that this "grandnephew" is Hoori. Hoori married Toyotamahime, and they had a child (Ugayafukiaezu) who later married Tamayorihime, which fits the above narrative.
Hoori is the son of Ninigi and Konohanasakuyahime (who you may also know as the one who cut Yatsugatake). Konohanasakuyahime is herself descended from Ooyamatsumi, who apparently came from Izanagi before his cleansing (which spawned Amaterasu, Tsukuyomi, and Susanoo, among many others). Ninigi on the other hand came from Amenooshihomimi and Yorozuhatahime. Amenooshihomimi came from Amaterasu, which as said above came from Izanagi. Yorozuhatahime came from Takamimusuhi, who is one of the three kami of creation. It's extra confusing since Takamimusuhi did some stuff, then left existence and reappeared generations later to have Yorozuhatahime -- but before they "hid", they created Omoikane. So to follow all this back down, Omoikane is a sibling of Yorozuhatahime, whose child is Ninigi, whose child is Hoori, who married Toyotamahime.
So essentially what Eirin did with this quote is further confirm her identity (along with the Watatsukis), but also troll a whole lot because the Shinto kami genealogy is convoluted as fuck and there were a ton of other ways she could have stated their relationship.
Houri, Toyotama hime, and Ugayafukiaezu (to a lesser extent) are figures that have some presence in a folklore story about a lost fishhook? and two magical jewels. Basically the story is more or less like this (skipping a huuuuuuge chunk of context but still getting the essential right) :
Houri loses the enchanted fishhook his brother Hoderi lent him, and his brother forces him to find it and bring it back : Houri searches for the fishhook and dives deep in the sea, where he encounters Toyotama hime. He falls in love with her, marry her, go live with her in the dragon palace and ask Ryujin (her father)?s help to find the lost fishhook ; Three years later, feeling homesick , he asks to go home and explain his situation to Ryujin : good guy Ryujin then gives Hoori two magic jewels that control the sea to Hoori, curses the fishhook so that it brings misfortune to its owner, and give a strategy to Hoori in order to subjugate his brother? with the help of the two sea controlling jewels?
The story continues into Hoori subjugating Hoderi, the birth of his son (Ugayafukiaezu) and why his wife left him and so on? but interestingly enough, despite the role they played, we never hear about the magical jewels anymore? at all !
Anyway, Touhouverse puts the Dragon palace in the moon, and Toyohime is more or less Toyotama hime as much as Eirin is Omoikane : so... how to fit the story with the Moon (and Touhou) then ~ ?
These magical orbs / jewels are called Kanju and Manju (otherwise known as Shiomitsu-tama and Shiohiru-tama), and their respective ability is to raise and lower the sea level:
"borrowing" the explanation straight from Wikipedia because of lazinessThe Japanese compounds kanju 干珠 lit. "ebb jewel" and manju 満珠 lit. "flow jewel" combine kan 干 (cf. 乾) "dry up; drain off; ebb (tides); recede; oppose" and man 満 "fill; full; rise (tides); fulfill; satisfy" with ju, shu, or tama 珠 "gem; jewel; precious stone; pearl; bead". Compare the reversible compounds kanman 干満 and mankan 満干or michihi 満ち干 meaning "ebb and flow; high and low tides; the tides". Shiomitsu-tama 潮満珠 and shiohiru-tama 潮干珠 are archaic "tide jewel" names using shio or chō 潮 "tide; flow; salt water".
Alright, so? if we forcefully shove these into Touhou, these?ll have to be treasure that were given by the Moon? magical jewels that controls the sea level, won?t that look pretty in Touhou ? But anyway? Pop quiz ~ what else can control the sea level in the world ? That?s right ! The Moon ! (well, technicaly, it "affects", but...) It?s totally possible to forcefully fuse some things from the story into Touhou the same way the tale of the bamboo cutter got hijacked by Touhou without to much trouble. What if these somehow made their appearance into the series someday ? :3 We don?t have a wholesome sea-related story yet in Touhou, but hey, the Moon gets to be associated with sea things quite a bit, so? :X
I?m not making this with Touhou 15 in mind (well, a bit, but?), just that I just got reminded of this suddenly for some reason and thought it would be amusing to see some of it in the series? especially since the magical jewels were never, ever mentioned again...