![]() The fox spirit tried to escape into the wilderness, but was eventually caught. Using divination, a court astrologer determined that Tamamo-no-Mae was the cause of the emperor’s ailing health and ordered her to be captured. But the closer she got to the emperor, the more ill-stricken he became. And catch his eye she did – the emperor was smitten with her. ![]() Image credit: was a known shapeshifter who morphed into a beautiful woman to catch the eye of the emperor. Tamamo-no-Mae was a kitsune (fox spirit) who was trapped inside the killing stone for almost 900 years, having been sealed there since the time of Emperor Toba (1107 – 1123).Ī nine-tailed fox as illustrated by Japanese artist Kuniyoshi. More specifically, they think it has something to do with Tamamo-no-Mae, an evil nine-tailed fox spirit ( kyuubi no kitsune 九尾の狐). This sounds plausible, but some locals believe that the rock splitting has a supernatural explanation. Compounded by the cold weather, the integrity of the stone may have been weakened and hence became crack-prone. Image adapted from: one is entirely certain as to why the Japanese killing stone split open, but local media assert that there have been cracks in the rock in the past few years, which may have allowed water to seep in. ![]() In March 2022, a Japanese sessho-seki (killing stone 殺生石) was found cracked in half at the Nikko National Park in Tochigi, a prefecture just north of Tokyo. It seems like nothing has changed in modern times, based on the recent splitting of a Japanese killing stone. Before scientific discoveries were first made, natural phenomena were explained using mythology and divine beings. ![]()
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