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Tennyo
Heavenly nymph or celestial being. A famous story of a celestial maiden and her robe of feathers began as a group of maidens came to earth to bathe in a pool, leaving
their feather robes on the trees close by. A man came by and took one of the robes, frightening the maidens to fly back to the sky. Only the maiden who's robe was held
by the man remained as she could not fly away without it, and married the man soon after. She bore him a child, but on regaining her robe one day, flew back to the heavens.
Another story of a tennyo, tells how a fisherman took a robe of feathers he found hanging on a pine tree, but when the celestial maiden came to claim it, he would not return it to her.
The tennyo could only regain her robe by dancing a celestial dance for the fisherman. There is also a famous noh play titled Hagoromo.
From v. 8 of The Mythology of All Races: "The Japanese Tennyo, who are copied from the Devatas, roam in the sky, clad in fluttering veils and without wings. They play music and
scatter flowers in the air, and their presence is perceived through their celestial music and their heavenly perfume. Often they are borne aloft on iridescent clouds and descend to hill-tops
or promontories, or they illumine the dusk of the forests. They surround pious Buddhists and perform the duties of ministering angels..." (267)
Variations of this legend are found around the world. The swan maiden and selkie stories are but two famous ones. In the swan maiden stories the girl usually transforms by means
of a feather robe to a swan, and like the tennyo story, once stolen is under the power of he who possesses her robe. The Irish tales of the selkie or seal maiden are similar. When a fisherman
takes the seal robe while the girl bathes in the sea or sunbathes on a rock, she marries him and bears children, but on regaining her skin returns to her home in the sea.
In Ayashi no Ceres, Ceres left her robe on a pine tree for the fisherman, Mikage, to find, and marries him and finds herself in love with him. Her story thereafter involves her search for her robe and her wish to make amends
for what is done throughout the generations in her children because of the tennyo blood and power. When Mikage is reincarnated one way he senses Ceres is from her smell.
In Ceres, it is stated there are over 50 variations of the tennyo legend in Japan alone, including Tochigi and Amago.
The Niigata version given in the anime is that women from the area were good fishermen and when they put their robe on would turn into fish. They too were descended from tennyo. A half-woman
half-fish carcass was found that only fueled the legend.
One of Yui's elemental suits in the Corrector Yui manga looks to be modeled
after the tennyo.
From Inu-Yahsa: The Castle Beyond the Looking Glass, Kaguya is grouped with the tennyo. Here, it is implied that because
Kaguya was a maiden of the heavens, she could be called a tennyo. The hagoromo also acts as a major source of power for the spirit, and with its destruction follows
the destruction of the tennyo.
Hagoromo
The robe of the tennyo. In Watase's variation of the legend, Ayashi no Ceres, the hagoromo is not needed to fly or give the tennyo magical abilities (she possesses those anyway) instead the robe helps
the tennyo bait husbands as they are driven to procreate, leave descendants. This is why heavenly maidens are so beautiful. It is also learned the hagoromo is their mana, and if the robe
is not returned to them, the tennyo die. Said to be not so different from maidens who are white cats in tales, mermaids, wolves, or swan maidens, as their hagoromo/mana is what helps them undergo
cellular transformation.
Toya (Ayashi no Ceres)
His name means "tenth night," and was named this because he grew in ten days after being found in a membrane as a baby in the sea. Toya was created by the hagoromo originally owned by Ceres.
When Mikage threw it into the sea 5,000 years ago it managed to survive instead of becoming a simple object or disintegrating by feeding off the organisms in the ocean and slowly recreating the
process of evolution inside itself to create a life, Toya, the purpose of which was to send itself back to the tennyo it belonged to, Ceres. So in essence, Toya is Ceres' (or Aya's) hagoromo, or the
vessel by which the hagoromo travels back to her.