my books

I have just published a new book on Amazon, Myths from Prayers and Poems. This is a compilation of three of my Patreon essays, covering the myths of the kami that are found in the norito prayers in the tenth-century Engishiki, and those that are found in the poems in the eighth-century Man’yōshū. There is less in these sources than one might expect. Most of the norito do not retell myths, and the kami are not a substantial presence in the Man’yōshū poems. That is interesting in itself, of course,… Read More »Myths from Prayers and Poems

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… Read More »New Book

Jinja Shinpō has an irregular short column on the front page (always the front page) written and signed pseudonymously by one of the reporters, giving their personal view of an issue related to Shinto. As they are written internally and not generally time critical, I suspect that the needs of layout are an important factor in whether they appear. There was one in the 25th May issue. This one was by “Shima” and they start by saying that whenever they see a jinja in a film, they look in the… Read More »Jinja in Fiction

I’ve just published another collection of essays from the Patreon on Amazon: Myths from Fudoki Fragments 2. (Affiliate link!) This book includes three essays on Shinto-related myths found in fragments of the eighth-century Fudoki, texts compiled by Imperial order to describe the regions of Japan. Not all of the fragments are genuine, but it is impossible to be sure which are real, which are later paraphrases, and which are entirely spurious. This is something I discuss in the book. This collection includes the original version of the Urashima Tarō story.… Read More »New Book

I have published Myths from Fudoki Fragments 1 on Amazon, collecting three of my essays from 2023. Yes, I have got a bit behind. There’s only one of me… To quote the blurb on Amazon (which I wrote, so I am allowed): 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… Read More »New Book

My latest book is The Toshigoi and Tsukinami Norito, and it is available on Amazon and Gumroad. (Affiliate link to Amazon.) The title of this book is clear and informative if you are an expert on Shinto, and almost completely opaque if you are not. Unfortunately, the clearer titles would be insufficiently specific, because there are lots of other norito coming from the same source. That source is the Engishiki, a tenth-century legal compilation that includes details for the rituals through which the court bureaucracy venerated the kami. Those regulations… Read More »New Book: Toshigoi Norito