She is one of the heroines around whom much tradition has gathered, and her successful invasion of Korea is an event which the Japanese writers and artists are never tired of representing. The legend—for undoubtedly much of the story is legendary—is essentially as follows: The emperor was busy in Kyūshū in reducing to subjection the tribes of the Kumaso who inhabited the southern portion of the island. Up to this time these restless tribes had given much trouble to the empire and expeditions were constantly needed to keep them in order. They were unquestionably of a kindred race with the Japanese who accompanied the Emperor Jimmu into the Main island. The empress, afterward known as Jingō-Kōgō and the faithful prime-minister Take-no-uchi(64) were at their temporary palace at Kashihi. The empress in an interview on the campaign became divinely possessed. And she spoke to the emperor in the name of the deity that possessed her saying, “There is a land at the westward, and in that land there is abundance of various treasures dazzling to the eye, from gold and silver downwards. I will now bestow this land upon thee.” Then the emperor replied, “If you ascend to a high place and look westward, no country is to be seen; there is only the great sea.” And he pushed away the lute upon which he was playing and said, “They are lying deities which have spoken to you.” Then the deity was very angry and spoke again through the empress. “This empire is not a land over which thou art fit to rule. Go thou the one road.” The prime-minister Take-no-uchi then said to the emperor, “I am filled with awe, my heavenly sovereign, at this fearful message. I pray thee continue playing thy august lute.” Then he played softly; and gradually the sound died away and all was still. And they took a light and looking in his face, behold he was dead. The empress and the prime-minister Take-no-uchi concealed for the time the death of the emperor, and she herself proceeded to carry out the plan for the invasion of Korea. With indefatigable energy she gathered her forces and equipped a fleet for the descent upon Korea. She set out from Wani in Kyūshū in the tenth month of the year A.D. 202. Even the fish of the sea were her allies, for with one accord they bore the ship in which she sailed across the intervening straits on their backs.