{"id":4,"date":"2012-09-20T14:37:00","date_gmt":"2012-09-20T14:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"2012-09-20 14:37:00"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","slug":"4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.touken-matsumoto.jp\/eng\/blog\/2012\/09\/20\/4\/","title":{"rendered":"A Special Tsuba With A Special Story Attached       Sep. 20, 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.touken-matsumoto.jp\/eng\/blog\/img\/4-1.jpg\" class=\"top\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.touken-matsumoto.jp\/eng\/blog\/img\/4-1.jpg\" alt=\"\u30a2\u30c3\u30d7\u30ed\u30fc\u30c9\u30d5\u30a1\u30a4\u30eb 4-1.jpg\" width=\"200\" height=\"133\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.touken-matsumoto.jp\/eng\/blog\/img\/4-2.jpg\" class=\"top\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.touken-matsumoto.jp\/eng\/blog\/img\/4-2.jpg\" alt=\"\u30a2\u30c3\u30d7\u30ed\u30fc\u30c9\u30d5\u30a1\u30a4\u30eb 4-2.jpg\" width=\"200\" height=\"133\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.touken-matsumoto.jp\/eng\/blog\/img\/4-3.jpg\" class=\"top\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.touken-matsumoto.jp\/eng\/blog\/img\/4-3.jpg\" alt=\"\u30a2\u30c3\u30d7\u30ed\u30fc\u30c9\u30d5\u30a1\u30a4\u30eb 4-3.jpg\" width=\"200\" height=\"133\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p> \t\t\t\t<!--\n\n\n\n--> \t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes an item comes your way that stuns you.<br \/>A short while back such an item found its way into our shop. It was a Tsuba with a theme taken from the Japanese fable of &#8216;Tsuchi-gumo'(a spider demon), and the story about &#8216;Minamoto Raik\u014d&#8217; whose life the demon made miserable.<\/p>\n<p>Not even Minamoto&#8217;s loyal retainers were able to dispose of the demon, and at the end it was &#8216;Hizamaru&#8217;, Minamoto&#8217;s own Tachi that came to life and got rid of the terrible Tsuchi-gumo demon.<br \/>The Tsuba itself depicts some of Raik\u014d&#8217;s retainers, fast asleep, after the demon had cast a spell on them, on one side. On the other side, the Hizamaru is depicted.<\/p>\n<p>When I first bought this Tsuba, I was fascinated by how well the previous owner told the story, as well as the craftsmanship of the Tsuba-maker. In combination, these two skills complimated each other very well, and are, at least to me, something that I think should be larger part of the artistic side of our business.<\/p>\n<p>For any sword trader, to neglect this part of our history and our story telling traditions, seems to me a big waste, as this type of knowledge, adds to the value and uniquness of most Tsuba, and helps in keeping items and our culture interesting and living.<\/p>\n<p>For a long time, I failed at making the fable interesting myself, as I was unable to tell the story as well as the person from whom I bought the Tsuba to begin with.<br \/>The Tsuba itself would be easy to sell, it having been sugested as a possible candidates for the &#8216;J\u016by\u014d-t\u014ds\u014dgu&#8217; rank. But, this to me, didn&#8217;t seem fair to the Tsuba nor to the man who made it. However, I was finally able to find the item a good home, with a buyer and enthusiast that truly understood how unique the Tsuba this is.<br \/>In a way, it felt similar to seeing a son or daughter marry a good spouse and start a new and exciting chapter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sometimes an item comes your way that stuns you.A short while back such an item found its way into our shop. It was a Tsuba with a theme taken from the Japanese fable of &#8216;Tsuchi-gumo'(a spider demon), and the story about &#8216;Minamoto Raik\u014d&#8217; whose life the demon made miserable. Not even Minamoto&#8217;s loyal retainers were &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.touken-matsumoto.jp\/eng\/blog\/2012\/09\/20\/4\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">A Special Tsuba With A Special Story Attached       Sep. 20, 2012<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.touken-matsumoto.jp\/eng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.touken-matsumoto.jp\/eng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.touken-matsumoto.jp\/eng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.touken-matsumoto.jp\/eng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.touken-matsumoto.jp\/eng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.touken-matsumoto.jp\/eng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.touken-matsumoto.jp\/eng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.touken-matsumoto.jp\/eng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.touken-matsumoto.jp\/eng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}