稲葉江

The legend of Inaba-Gō is inseparable from the mystery of its maker. Gō Yoshihiro was for centuries believed by some scholars to be a mythical figure — a 'ghost smith' whose name was applied to unsigned masterworks too perfect to attribute to any known maker. His authenticated signed works are so rare that each one is treated as a national treasure. The sword's name comes from Inaba Itttetsu, the notoriously stubborn Sengoku warrior whose nickname became a Japanese word for immovable stubbornness. That a sword of such fierce, burning beauty should belong to the most unbending man of his age feels less like coincidence than destiny — the Japanese concept of *en* (fateful connection) at work. The blade's 'Gō no nie,' the golden crystalline fire of its hamon, is described in sword connoisseurship as 'nukenuke' — a term suggesting something freely, magnificently released, like flame escaping its bounds. In a blade that passed from warrior to warlord, from Sengoku chaos to Tokugawa peace, that image of controlled fire barely contained seems an apt metaphor for Japan's most turbulent century.