"First Samurai sword" legend

Though we may only guess about first samurai sword, there is legend that says that there was actually a "first sword" made by swordsmiths Amakuni in the Yamato Province. Amakuni was the chief among swordsmiths , which specialized on swords making for the Emperor and his warriors.

According to the legend, Amakuni together with his son Amakura were standing near their workshop, watching warriors coming back from battlefield. Earlier, the Emperor would signal Amakuni which would be a kind of recognition of his mastership. This time the Emperor juts passed without giving any of the usual gestures towards the swordsmith. But then Amakuni found out that swords of most warriors were broken. The swordsmaster and his son decided to take all the fragments of all swords and had come to a conclusion that main cause of sword's damage was wrong forging which made it quite fragile when they would hit other weapon. Thus Amakuni seeing the disappointment and grief in the eyes of the Emperor, decided to make a sword which couldn't be broken.

After that Amakuni and his son vowed themselves and detached themselves from the outside, praying for a week to Shinto gods.Then they prepared everything for the future sword. Amakuni managed to find excellent iron ore and cleaned it thoroughly. The task seemed to be too hard to fulfill. But upon a month expiration , the work was successfully done. The result was a single-edged curved sword, after which a new sword was on the way. It took them months of hard work to perfect their skills and create swords for all the warriors. And when another war has come and Amakuni met warriors from the battle- he watched for the swords with unrest and hope. Having counted all thirty one swords he was happy to find all of them just the way they were at the beginning. The Emperor definitely couldn't help saying that Amakuni was an excellent swordsmaker and his swords didn't betrayed them during the battle.

It's still a subject of dispute about the time when Amakuni lived. Some say that he lived at the beginning of the VIII century, others say- in the IX-X century. But the thing is that none of his swords were found nowadays.