ABSTRACT
Many standard histories of Japan still assert that Hirado shima, an island of some sixty-six square miles, was governed by the aristocratic Matsuura family from the eleventh century until 1871. Local tradition claims that the family was de scended from a warrior who arrived on the island much earlier, as a member of the ill-fated expeditionary force sent by the semi-legendary empress Jingo to invade Korea in the second or third century. (A sword displayed in the museum inside Hirado Castle was once claimed to be his.) This legend may reflect the rise of a Matsuura family to local prominence sometime before the eleventh century.
