Dr. Florenz summarily rejects Hirata's theory that Susa no wo is identical with the Moon-God Tsuki-yomi. It must be admitted that if this deity ever had a lunar quality it had become forgotten in the times of the _Kojiki_ and _Nihongi_. Both these works distinguish him unmistakably from the Moon-God. Nor is the European student likely to adopt the literal-minded Hirata's notion that the land of Yomi at first situated at the bottom of the Earth, became detached after Susa no wo was made its ruler, and was placed in the sky where we now see it--as the moon. Yet there is something to be said for his contention that the two deities were originally identical. The analogy of other mythologies[108] suggests that a God whose relations with the Sun are at one time marital and at another hostile must be the Moon. There is nothing strange in the darkness of night and of the grave being presided over by the same divinity. Persephone, Queen of Hades, was a Moon-Goddess. The original identity of Susa no wo and Tsukiyomi would account for both deities being severally described in different myths as the slayer of the Food-Goddess and as the Ruler of the Sea-plain. It would also explain why the diviners at Ise ascribed to a curse from Tsukiyomi a storm of wind and rain which in 772 uprooted trees and destroyed houses. In an old book quoted by Hirata, Susa no wo is called Haya-Sasura no Kami, "swift-banishment-deity." His daughter while in Yomi is called Suseri-hime, probably identical with the Sasura-hime of the _norito_[109] who dwells in the Root-country, and whose business it is to "banish" and get rid of the pollutions of the people. A Manyōshiu poem calls the moon Sasurahe-otoko, that is to say, the banished or vagabond youth. All this establishes a presumption that Susa no wo was at one time a lunar deity. If so he would appear in three closely related aspects, the darkness of the storm, of the grave, and of night. Brinton, writing without any special reference to Japan, observes[110]:--"Associated with the gloom of night was the darkness of the storm, which in many mythologies is contrasted with the sunshine in some divine struggle. Endless are the tales and rites which bear upon this contest in early religions."