reputation of being unlucky: they are supposed by the superstitious to
hunger after taking men's lives, and to be unable to repose in their
scabbards. The principal duty of a sword is to preserve tranquillity
in the world, by punishing the wicked and protecting the good. But the
bloodthirsty swords of Muramasa rather have the effect of maddening
their owners, so that they either kill others indiscriminately or
commit suicide. At the end of the sixteenth century Prince Tokugawa
Iyéyasu was in the habit of carrying a spear made by Muramasa, with
which he often scratched or cut himself by mistake. Hence the Tokugawa
family avoid girding on Muramasa blades, which are supposed to be
specially unlucky to their race. The murders of Gompachi, who wore a
sword by this maker, also contributed to give his weapons a bad name.

The swords of one Tôshirô Yoshimitsu, on the other hand, are specially
auspicious to the Tokugawa family, for the following reason. After
Iyéyasu had been defeated by Takéta Katsuyori, at the battle of the
river Tenrin, he took refuge in the house of a village doctor,
intending to put an end to his existence by _hara-kiri,_ and drawing
his dirk, which was made by Yoshimitsu, tried to plunge it into his
belly, when, to his surprise, the blade turned. Thinking that the dirk
must be a bad one, he took up an iron mortar for grinding medicines
and tried it upon that, and the point entered and transfixed the
mortar. He was about to stab himself a second time, when his
followers, who had missed him, and had been searching for him
everywhere, came up, and seeing their master about to kill himself,
stayed his hand, and took away the dirk by force. Then they set him
upon his horse and compelled him to fly to his own province of Mikawa,
whilst they kept his pursuers at bay. After this, when, by the favour
of Heaven, Iyéyasu became Shogun, it was considered that of a surety
there must have been a good spirit in the blade that refused to drink