Tomoe Gozen was the prototypical Japanese female warrior. She had “long black hair and a fair complexion, and her face was very lovely; moreover she was a fearless rider, whom neither the fiercest horse nor the roughest ground could dismay, and so dexterously did she handle sword and bow that she was a match for 1,000 warriors, fit to meet either god or devil.” A woman so dashing deserves to be better known. She figures, all too fleetingly, in the “Heike Monogatari,” the 13th-century chronicle of the 12th-century Genpei War, the classic confrontation between the Taira and Minamoto military clans.