A storied pair of long and short blades said to have been owned by the Heike clan in times of old. The longer of the two, Kogarasu—maru (Little Raven) is said to have been forged using the feathers of a legendary raven from the sacred Ise Jingu Grand Shrine and bestowed upon the head of the Taira by the royal family; the shorter of the two, Nuke—maru (Quickdraw) was forged by a son of the famed smith Ohara Yasutsuna. It got its nickname when Taira—no—Tadamori was attacked by a great serpent and it leapt from his scabbard unassisted to protect its master. It is also known as Wither from a legend that if it was stuck into the ground at the base of a tree, the tree would brown and die by morning. The blades went missing after the fall of the Heike clan and their whereabouts are unknown today.
