Yofune-Nushi lived in a cave by the sea along the coast of the Oki Islands, volcanic islands in the southwestern region of the Sea of Japan. From his seaside cave, Yofune-Nushi stirred up storms and made the seas unsafe for fishing boats. For the islanders, this was a great distress as much of their food and livelihoods depended on the sea. An arrangement was made that a young maiden should be sacrificed to Yofune-Nushi every year, on the thirteenth of June. It's not clear if the dragon spoke Japanese, or exactly how this bargain was struck originally, but the legend holds that Yofune-Nushi would fly into a fit of temper, bringing a devastating storm that would sink the entire village's fishing fleet, if the sacrifice was not made on the specified date.
One year, sometime around 1320 A.D., a beautiful young maiden named Tokoyo came to the island. She was searching for her father, a powerful samurai named Oribe Shima. Oribe Shima had offended the great warlord, Hojo Takatoki, and had been banished to these distant islands. His eighteen-year-old daughter Tokoyo, weeping for her beloved father, had left their family home in the Shima Province by the sea. Raised beside the sea among the pearl divers of Shima Province, Tokoyo was a skilled swimmer since childhood. She was also brave and fearless. Many weeks she travelled to the Oki Islands and there she searched everywhere among the islands for any sign of her father.
One evening, Tokoyo found a peaceful spot and lay down to sleep. Presently, she was awakened to the sound of sobbing girl. Tokoyo saw a young maiden, about fifteen years old, accompanied by a priest. Both were dressed in white robes. She stepped boldly forward, inquiring why the girl was in such distress. The priest explained that it was his unfortunate duty to cast the young girl into the sea, as part of an important sacrificial ceremony to Yorfune-Nushi that Tokoyo had interrupted. Boldly, Tokoyo took the ceremonial robe off the young girl and put it on herself.
"I see there is much sorrow in this part of the world," she declared to the priest. "But no one is as grieved as my poor broken heart. I am the sorrowing daughter of a great samurai. I have been searching for my father, exiled to this place, and have spent all my money without finding any trace of my dearest father. I have nothing left to live for, and I can no longer go on. Let me take this girl's place. My death can save so many people, and perhaps death will extinguish all my sorrows, so I will gladly offer myself in her place. But pray, good priest, all I ask is that you should take this letter which is addressed to my father and try to deliver it to him wherever he may be found." If either the girl or the priest would have protested, no one will ever know for Tokoyo turned and dove off the rocks into the sea below.
In the moonlight, she swam expertly through the clear waters, just as she had learned from childhood. She headed towards a partly submerged cave. Looking inside, she thought she saw a man sitting just inside the mouth of the cave. Thinking that this was the true form of the evil Yofune-Nushi, she pulled a dagger from her belt and swam bravely forward, determined to kill him and put a stop to this annual horror. But as she drew close to the form, dagger drawn, ready to fight, she saw that it was neither man nor dragon. Instead, she found a wooden statue of Hojo Takatoki, the wicked warlord who had banished her father.
At first, Tokoyo was angry and thought to thrust her dagger at the wooden statue, but she realized that would serve no purpose. Then she puzzled over the statue for a while, wondering who had made it, why it was here in this sea-cave, and what to do with her find. Presently, she decided to take it to back to the priest on the cliffs above to ask him these questions. She pulled off her corded belt and tied it around the statue. It was waterlogged and heavy, but she was sure she could bring it back to the shore.
Tokoyo had made her way back outside the cave when Yofune-Nushi came forth from the depths of his home. Sure that this was his annual tribute, Yofune-Nushi charged hungrily towards Tokoyo. But Tokoyo stood firm, gripping her dagger tightly. As the dragon's advance came within a few feet of her, she stepped aside suddenly. The dragon's momentum sent his massive figure hurtling past her. She stabbed fiercely at his head and her blade sank deep into the dragon's right eye.
The dragon bellowed in pain, and turned to retreat back into the darkness of its cave. But Tokoyo blocked his retreat, slashing again and again with her dagger, killing the monstrous creature. She stood looking at the lifeless, bloody form of the dragon and she knew she needed to bring it to show to the priest if she was to stop this dreadful annual ceremony. She tied one end of her sash around the dragon's body and the other to the strange wooden statue that she had found, and slowly she swam back to the foot of the cliff with these items dragging out behind her. Although Tokoyo had been in the sea for nearly a half-hour, the priest and the young girl were still on the top of the cliff, staring down into the sea when Toyoko came up out of the water. The girl cried out that it was Tokoyo, not Yofune-Nushi, who had broken the water's surface below them. "Look! She still has my white robe! And it appears that she has a man and a large fish with her. Whatever can this mean?" But the priest did not hear the girl's question for he was scrambling down the rocks to the water's edge to help Tokoyo and her cargo.
The warlord Hojo Takatoki had been suffering with some malady that the doctors of this time could not diagnose or cure. When he heard the news of Tokoyo's adventure in the dragon's cave, he was sure that his illness had been the result of some evil dragon's curse. In gratitude, Hojo Takatoki ordered the immediate release of Oribe Shima from his prison cell. Father and daughter were joyously reunited and returned to their home in Shima Province.
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