THE FOURTEENTH DAY The fourteenth day started as any other day, or so it seemed but for one thing, this was the day that the blade would be tempered. This was a critical time for Yasukuni and he spent a little longer than normal, praying at the shrine for guidance from the sword Kami. The hardening process, known as “yaki-ire” would once again call on all his experience and skill. When he was ready, his son took a portion of the special earth from its container. The best earth that was used for the tempering of a blade was only obtainable from four places in the whole of Japan. His son used a measure and mixed the correct amounts of powdered charcoal and powdered grindstone with the earth. He used a small amount of water to create the “mud” for coating the blade. Yasukuni watched the mixing carefully to ensure …show more content…
The beautiful wood grain pattern emerged on the sides of the sword. Tens of thousands of layers of steel saw the light of day. The delicate hitatsura patterned temper line was also clearly visible as it wandered along the length of the blade between the shinogi and the cutting edge. Other artisans had already been working on the “koshirae” – the scabbard, tsuba, hilt, habaki, and the many other parts of the sword. An expert carver who specialised in the work carved the menuki in the pattern of two entwined bream. TESTING THE BLADE Before all these parts were fitted, the blade was fixed with a temporary hilt so that it could be used by Jukaku san, the sword tester. At the execution grounds, Jakuka asked for the bodies of two executed prisoners to be placed on top of each other. The bodies were placed on two parallel mounds of earth that kept the bodies about 20 centimetres off the ground. Jakuka, the sword tester, stood over the two bodies and used a single downward cut. The sword made a clean cut, right through the two bodies and Jakuka knew that it was a special