White Hare of Inaba

In the Kojiki account (Kamitsumaki) the hare originates as a speaking animal of the Age of the Gods. In that tale the hare, attempting to cross from the Island of Oki to the mainland, tricks a line of wanizame (rendered in English as sharks or sometimes crocodiles) into forming a bridge; when it boasts of the deception the last shark tears away its fur. The injured hare encounters the traveling gods (Ōnamuchi and his brothers), is mocked by the elder brothers but healed by the kind Ōnamuchi; after recovery the hare reveals its true form as a god and tells Ōnamuchi that he will marry Princess Yakami. In a separate local variant tied to Ise ga naru the white hare appears to Amaterasu and her entourage, bites at her clothing and leads them to a suitable site for a temporary palace before vanishing; this variant is linked to shrine sites (Hakuto Jinja) in the region.

Typically described as a small white hare (Inaba no Shirousagi). Modern commentary identifies the creature with the Japanese hare (Lepus brachyurus), a species that is usually brown but may turn white in winter in some areas; sources note that such biological identification is a later interpretive detail. In the Kojiki tale the hare is notably pictured flayed — its fur ripped from its back after the encounter with the wanizame — an injury central to the story's action and moral lesson.

Within the mythic framework the hare speaks and engages in dialogue with deities and divine-masked humans, acts with trickster cunning (deceiving sea-creatures to cross water), functions as a moral test (provoking reactions that distinguish Ōnamuchi's kindness from his brothers' cruelty), can reveal a divine identity after being helped, and in some tellings serves as a guide to a site for a temporary palace (Ise ga naru). The sources do not attribute broad magical or cosmically destructive powers to the hare beyond these narrative roles.