The common rat and mice also were still prevalent in popular life despite its propensity to cause damage. For example, when children, teeth fall out the hopes that they grow strong as those of rats. Over time the rat has entered the popular imagination, as a messenger of Daikokuten, one of the seven gods of good fortune, granting and safeguarding the well-being. Most likely this is due to the fact that the rat is often found in homes and barns where there was a good amount of food, in fact the mouse is in the prints in traditional Japanese tattooing is represented by gold and silver, or near in bags of rice which in turn serve as chairs Daikokuten.

Among the Ainu, the indigenous people of northern Japan, it is said that the mouse was created by God to give a punishment to the devil, after an altercation had with him. God put his hand behind his back gave birth to a mouse, which immediately caught his devil’s tongue rips it off the net and the prince of darkness rage had increased so much the number of rats, although to counter this scourge, God was forced to forge the cat. That is why the rats did not cause any discomfort venerable man, those are ignored can cause chaos and damage anything.

The cunning of the rat is told in one of the most famous tales of Nippon culture, the origin of the twelve signs of the zodiac, that treating the genesis of the Chinese horoscope symbols. The Japanese version and the Chinese are very similar, it tells of a competition set up by the kami to decide the leader of the animals, in which the mouse can, recognizing their weaknesses and exploiting the strengths of others, you get that from the first jestingly then became his bitterest enemy the cat.

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