Having subdued the eastern lands, Yamato Takeru returned to Owari and married Miyazu-hime. Leaving the sword Kusanagi with her, he went off to defeat the god of Ibuki (Mount Ibuki). "I will take this mountain god with my bare hands," he said, and climbed the mountain. There he met a white boar as big as an ox.
Takeru loudly declared, "This white boar must be the mountain god's messenger. I won't kill it now; I'll kill it on my way back." But the boar was the mountain god itself. Because he had spoken boastfully and slighted the god, a fierce hailstorm beat down on him, and he was bewildered and lost his senses.
Coming down the mountain, he rested at the spring of Tamakurabe and recovered his senses a little. That is why the spring is called Isame, the Waking Spring. But his body was badly weakened. At Tagino he said, "My legs have gone stiff and I cannot walk." Leaning on a staff, he crossed the slope, and at Mie he said, "My legs are as worn out as rice cake folded in three."
When he reached Nobono, he sang of his home: "Yamato is the finest of lands. Ringed by mountains overlapping like green fences, Yamato is beautiful." He sang a few more songs, and as he finished "That sword I left by the maiden's bed…" he breathed his last.
When the news came, his wives and children hurried from Yamato, built a tomb, and lay weeping. Then Takeru's spirit became a great white bird, soared into the sky and flew off toward the shore. The people followed after it, weeping.