Then Izanagi was wroth, and cried aloud: “Oh, that I should have given my Beloved in return for a single child!” And his sorrow was so great that he crawled round her head and her feet, and from the tears that he shed sprang up the Goddess of Weeping. Then he took his ten-span sword and hewed Kagu-tsuchi in three pieces, and each piece sprang into life as the Spirit of Thunder, the Spirit of Mountains, and the Spirit of Rain. Now, Izanagi loved his wife so greatly that he could find no rest or peace on earth; and, after wandering long in search of comfort and finding none, he determined to seek her, even in the realm of Departed Spirits. His way lay through a long and gloomy passage where few have trod, right through the center of the earth, till he came at length to the Gate of Everlasting Night, to the Kingdom of Yomi, the Ruler of the Under World. He knocked at the Gate and cried aloud: “O my beloved Sister! come back to me!” And she answered him: “O beloved Elder Brother! gladly would I come, but, alas! I have eaten of Yomi’s cooking and am bewitched. Let me return and speak to him, but do not thou follow me!” So Izanagi waited anxiously without, till, growing impatient at her long delay, he broke a tooth off his comb, lighting it as a torch, and so dared to enter those terrible shades. Through dark and dreadful ways he wandered, and his heart quailed within him. But Yomi was wroth with him for his daring, and smote Izanami so that when he found her she lay as one altered in death, with Eight Witches at her head and her feet. Then a great horror fell upon Izanagi; he turned and fled swiftly, and the Eight Ugly Women rose and pursued him. On he ran, through winding ways where icy blasts fly shrieking; and the Witches swept after him and would have caught him, but he seized the wreath from his head and flung it down, and it was changed into bunches of grapes. When the Witches saw these they stopped and greedily devoured them; then, gathering up their robes, rose and pursued again. Izanagi felt the chill of their coming, and drew out a many-toothed comb from the right bunch of his hair and threw it behind him. Behold! as it touched the ground, there sprang up a hedge of young bamboo shoots across the path. The Witches swooped down, pulled up the young shoots, and ate them to the last one; then again gave chase. Now, Izanami, too, was angered against him, for she had been put to shame; and she sent five hundred warriors from Yomi to pursue him. When the rush and the tramping drew nearer, Izanagi unsheathed his ten-span sword, and in his despair his breath failed as at the approach of Death. Then suddenly appeared before him the Gate of the Pass of Yomi; and hastily plucking some peaches which grew by the gate, he threw them, and scattered his pursuers, and himself passed through into the light. And he rolled a mighty stone across the mouth of the opening, so that none hereafter could move it.