Gathered during the many years the author spent practicing yoga, karate, and exploring the Far East, this collection of teaching stories will appeal to anyone interested in yoga, oriental philosophy, the martial arts, or the evolving soul.
As the only female detective in Tokyo's most elite police unit, Mariko Oshiro has to fight for every ounce of respect, especially from her new boss. But when he gives her the least promising case possible, the attempted theft of an old samurai sword, it proves more dangerous than anyone on the force could have imagined. Mariko's investigation has put her on a collision course with a curse centuries old and as bloodthirsty as ever. She is only the latest in a long line of warriors and soldiers to confront this power, and even the sword she wields could turn against her.
In The Art of the Japanese Sword, master swordsmith Yoshindo Yoshihara offers a detailed look at the entire process of Japanese sword making, including the finishing and appreciation of Japanese blades. Japanese sword art stands out in many ways: functionality as a weapon, sophisticated metallurgy and metalsmithing, the shape of the blade itself--all contribute to the beauty of these remarkable weapons. The Art of the Japanese Sword conveys to the reader Japanese samurai sword history and Japanese sword care, as well as explaining how to view and appreciate a blade. With 256 full-color pages, this sword book illustrates in meticulous detail how modern craftsmen use traditional methods to prepare their steel, forge the sword and create the unique hardened edge. By gaining a good understanding of how a sword is actually made, the reader will be able to appreciate the samurai sword more fully. Topics include: Appreciating the Japanese sword History of the Japanese sword Traditional Japanese steelmaking Making the sword Finishing the sword
This is now the second volume of my book ,,Legends and Stories around the Japanese Sword". Once more I try to bring the reader closer to the Japanese sword and dig deeper into the matter by the means of legends, stories and anecdotes about famous swords and their swordsmiths. Like in the first volume, I introduce several famous meito or meibutsu, for example the Kogarasu-maru, Yoshimoto-Samonji, Takemata-Kanemitsu, Kuronbogiri-Kagehide, Tsurumaru-Kuninaga and many more. And the stories deal among other things with the greatest swordsmiths in Japanese history like Masamune, Muramasa, Samonji, Kiyomaro and Kotetsu, to name only a few.
In Blade of Secrets, the first book in Tricia Levenseller's exciting new YA fantasy duology, a teenage blacksmith with social anxiety is forced to go on the run to protect the world from the most powerful magical sword she's ever made. Eighteen-year-old Ziva prefers metal to people. She spends her days tucked away in her forge, safe from society and the anxiety it causes her, using her magical gift to craft unique weapons imbued with power. Then Ziva receives a commission from a powerful warlord, and the result is a sword capable of stealing its victims secrets. A sword that can cut far deeper than the length of its blade. A sword with the strength to topple kingdoms. When Ziva learns of the warlord’s intentions to use the weapon to enslave all the world under her rule, she takes her sister and flees. Joined by a distractingly handsome mercenary and a young scholar with extensive knowledge of the world’s known magics, Ziva and her sister set out on a quest to keep the sword safe until they can find a worthy wielder or a way to destroy it entirely.
Vulcan the god has a hard task to perform for his bored and restless colleagues — forge 12 magic Swords, quenched with human blood, and scatter them across the world. Each Sword possesses a different power. With them the gods will play a new, grand, and glorious Game. Mere humans foolishly striving for dominion, wealth and glory, are invited to risk their puny lives by joining in. (Later, the gods realize with horror that something has gone wrong in the forging, and with the Game. The Swords are much too powerful, controlling chance, enhancing fortune, changing destiny. And lethal even to their divine creators.) Jord the Smith, drafted to help Vulcan in his task, loses his right arm in the process (receiving the Sword Townsaver as pay). He is too weak to claim Mala, his bride-to-be, who joins a traditional fertility rite, where her partner might be the enigmatic Emperor, his face hidden by a leather mask. Nine months later, she gives birth to Mark. Thirteen years pass, then Townsaver wipes out a raiding party on orange-furred warbeasts, sent to Mark’s village. It falls to Mark to carry the blade away to hide or destroy it.
Drawing on information from grave excavations, illustrations of battle scenes, and many classical and medieval literary sources, this book discusses how contemporaries showed swords were used and illustrates not only the beautiful form of the sword, but also its beauty of function.
The newly crowned King Arthur has yet to win the support of the people. Merlin must do something before the king is betrayed, or murdered, or--worst of all--gets married. So Merlin creates a trick: a sword magically placed into a slab of rock that only Arthur can withdraw. Then he lets it be known that whosoever removes the blade will rule all of England, and invites any man who would dare, to try to pull out the sword. But then someone else pulls the sword out first. . . .