My latest book, Myths from Fudoki Fragments 3, is now available on Amazon (affiliate link!). Here is the blurb:
The Fudoki are gazetteers of regions of Japan, compiled in the eighth century. They include many myths, some of which give different versions of stories recorded in the central histories, and some of which seem to be completely different. Many of the Fudoki only survive in fragmentary quotations in later works, and it seems likely that some of the supposed quotations are not actually from ancient Fudoki. Nevertheless, many shed interesting light on Shinto, and even the latest works with the quotations are centuries old. This essay is the third in a series providing close English paraphrases and commentary on the myths that are most interesting in a Shinto context, and covers fragments claiming to be from the Fudoki for the ancient provinces of Tosa, Chikuzen, Chikugo, Buzen, Hizen, Higo, Hyūga, Ōsumi, and Satsuma. Note that this book is a compilation of two essays, and is about 12,000 words long.
This means that all my Fudoki myth essays are now available on Amazon. I think the Fudoki myths are very interesting, because they are fundamentally different from the well-known Japanese myths. The famous myths were collected by the Imperial court to justify the Tennō’s rule over Japan, while the myths in the Fudoki are those told by local people to explain their environment. Thus, both the overlaps and divergences shed interesting light on beliefs across Japan in the early period.
If that sounds interesting to you, please take a look.