Power sat in Kamakura, but taste was still made in Kyōto. The Awataguchi school’s pear-skin steel became a byword for perfection, and the Rai line supplied dignified tachi to the court, senior warriors, and the great temples alike.
NihontoWatchNihontoWatch出ました出ました鎌倉時代の太刀が出ました。刀剣鑑定会で刀の知識の良く有る人は鎌倉時代の山城来派の名刀に入札して否と言う答えを貰ったならば2番目の次の札は肥後延寿派の名刀に回答の札を入れよと言われています。それほど延寿一門はほとんど山城の来国俊、来国光と同様で良く似て関連性が有ります。それは元々肥後延寿の祖は鎌倉時代山城来国行の孫とされる来派の国村に始り来派の刀工が鎌倉時代元応頃（1318年）（706年前）天皇を崇拝する勤皇の志高い肥後菊池一族の招きにより京より肥後の地に移住した為です。本太刀は元は2尺7寸の長寸の太刀を摺り上げた為に無銘となり掟通りの反りの高い来派と同じ輪反りの堂々たる鎌倉期の太刀姿を現し。棟には相手の太刀を受けた誉れの傷を現し一段と本太刀の価値を上げ、地金は小板目肌良く詰み地沸が付き地には沸映りが立ち、刃紋は広直刃を焼いて小沸出来で浅くのたれ小丁子、足を入れて素晴らしく来派に見えるあか抜けた見事な刃を焼いています。本太刀はいかにも来国光に見える豪壮な名刀です、古来延寿とは長生きする名前で各大名家では御祝の刀として献上品としました。この度古いお数寄者様から自分も年を取ったので後進の方にお安くお譲り下さいとお預かりした為に鎌倉時代の700年も前の豪壮な延寿の太刀を特別に格安にてご提供いたします将来の大出世が楽しみな延寿の太刀です是非お楽しみ下さい。
NihontoWatchEnju School延寿派
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Yamashiro-den · Higo
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Among the provincial lines that carried the Kyoto manner beyond Yamashiro, the Enju (延寿) school of Higo province grew up at Kumafu in the Kikuchi District, working from the close of the Kamakura period through the Nanbokuchō era. Its founder, Tarō Kunimura, is transmitted in the prevailing account as the son of Hiromura of the Yamato Senjuin line, who married a daughter of Rai Kuniyuki of Yamashiro; by that marriage Kunimura is held to be Kuniyuki's grandson in the female line and a pupil of the Rai workshop (one early text instead places him in the gate of Rai Kunitoshi). The school name reads on the same characters as the Rai line itself, and from that double descent, Yamashiro through the Rai marriage and Yamato through the Senjuin side, the family took its character. Around the founder a cluster of named smiths arose almost at once, Kuniyoshi, Kunitoki, Kuniyasu, Kunitomo, Kunisuke, Kuninobu and Kunitsuna among them, the Enju line attached to the Kikuchi clan and loyal to the Southern Court, so that the dated blades carry that history in their Southern-Court eras. The published sources describe Enju work as one that broadly resembles the Rai school[[c:1]], refined in suguha yet cooler and whiter than its Kyoto parent, and they name the provincial accents by which the two are separated. The forging is an itame or closely packed ko-itame that flows toward the edge into masame, the grain standing a little, with fine ji-nie laid on and delicate chikei entering; over it rises a whitish shirake-utsuri, the surest single Enju tell, the cool reflection of a Kyushu steel that is not quite the bright Rai jigane. The temper is a chū-suguha or narrower hoso-suguha, the nioiguchi carried somewhat shizumi (sunken and quiet), often breaking into nijūba, the doubled line that recurs across the line; ko-ashi, yō, ko-nie, fine sunagashi and kinsuji play within it, the activity gentler than the brighter Rai suguha. The bōshi turns back on a larger radius than Rai's tight ko-maru, a shallow ō-maru with a short kaeri.
The signature is a tool of attribution: across the line the right half within the kuni (国) enclosure is cut in an ear-shaped form, a calligraphic habit the sources say cannot be confused with another school. Against true Rai, the school is read by its masame-lean, its whitish utsuri, its sinking nioiguchi and its quieter internal work, the ji and ha running a degree softer than the Yamashiro line. To kantei an Enju blade is to weigh those provincial accents against the Rai air it carries: a wheel-like wa-zori and Kyoto refinement may recall the parent at a glance, but the nagare in the ji, the shirake-utsuri, the subdued nioiguchi and the ear-shaped kuni settle the attribution, and the level of the work then narrows it to a hand. The founder Kunimura sets the quiet register and signs the slender, sharply tapering tachi the sources call distinctive even within the school; among the later smiths, Kunitoki survives in relative number and runs his suguha the busiest with ko-gunome and kinsuji, Kuniyasu is the most nie-laden and brightest, Kunisuke cuts the boldest chisel and hardens a unique flaming bōshi on his wide pieces, while Kuniyoshi, Kuninobu and the various other Kuni- smiths work the same vocabulary, the best of them refining the steel to a clarity that escapes the school's whitish thinness. The corpus runs mostly to slender signed tachi and to ō-suriage mumei katana attributed on appraisal, with broad sunobi tantō in the Nanbokuchō phase, the work confined to long blades in the founder's case. Provenance is unusually grand for a provincial line: blades pass through Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu and rest in the Hosokawa, Date, Uesugi, Owari and Mito Tokugawa houses, with examples held today by the Sano, Tokugawa, Seikadō and other institutions. A signed ubu Enju tachi is among the rarer encounters in Higo work; most survive as the mumei attribution, held as heritage rather than offered. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Kunimura國村 | 1275-1278 | 15 |
| Kunitoki國時 | 1317-1353 | 32 |
| Kunisuke國資 | 1346-1370 | 22 |
| Kuniyasu國泰 | 1329-1331 | 16 |
| Kunitoki國時 | 1275-1278 | 7 |
Yamashiro in the Kamakura period
Power sat in Kamakura, but taste was still made in Kyōto. The Awataguchi school’s pear-skin steel became a byword for perfection, and the Rai line supplied dignified tachi to the court, senior warriors, and the great temples alike.
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