童子切安綱
Dōjigiri Yasutsuna
Auch bekannt als: Demon Slayer
Beschreibung
One of the Five Greatest Swords, Dōjigiri Yasutsuna has been revered and feared for a millennium as 'the blade that slew a demon.' Forged by Ōhara Yasutsuna of Hōki Province, it displays a powerful itame-mokume grain with a vivid ko-midare hamon. Legend holds that Minamoto no Raikō used it to behead the demon Shuten-dōji atop Mount Ōe in Tanba Province. Passed through the Ashikaga shōguns, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu, it was tested during the Edo period by cutting through six stacked corpses in a single stroke.
Legenden & Geschichten
In the Heian period, a demon lord called Shuten-dōji terrorized the capital from his lair atop Mount Ōe in Tanba. Minamoto no Raikō, commanded by the emperor, led his Four Heavenly Kings to slay the beast. After plying Shuten-dōji with sacred sake, Raikō struck off the demon's head with this very blade. Even decapitated, the demon's head is said to have snapped at Raikō's helmet — a testament to the sword's supernatural power. The Edo-era cutting test in which it cleaved through six stacked bodies in one stroke proved that its cutting ability was no mere legend.