W480 — Japan: The Barking of the celestial dog: A great star floated from East to West and there was a noise, like that of thunder. The

Japan: The Barking of the celestial dog — 637

A great star floated from East to West and there was a noise, like that of thunder. The

people of that day said it was the sound of the falling star. Others said that it was earththunder. Hereupon the Buddhist Priest, Bin, said, “It is not the falling star but the Celestial Dog, the sound of whose barking is like thunder.”

Source: Nihongi or Chronicles of Japan (London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1956). Quoted by W. Raymond Drake in Gods and Spacemen in the Ancient East (London: Sphere, 1973), 104. Case: W480