A famous volcanic rock located in the mountains of Nasu in Japan has split in two, spurring long-held superstitions.
Photos shared on social media show the Sessho-seki known as the “killing stone” cracked down the middle, which, according to mythology, held the evil spirit of Tamamo-no-Mae, a woman said to have plotted to kill Emperor Toba during his reign from 1107 to 1123. As the story goes, she was killed by a famous warrior named Miura-nosuke, and her evil, nine-tailed fox spirit was entrapped in or became the stone.
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Though the exact day the rock cracked is unknown, social media posts indicated that it occurred this month. The superstitious fear that anyone who comes into contact with the stone will die, according to a report from the Guardian.
Japan’s Sessho-seki ‘killing stone’ splits in 2, trap for the evil spirit Tamamo-no-Mae, a beautiful woman who plotted with a warlord to kill Emperor Toba, 1107-1123. Her true identity was an evil 9-tailed fox whose spirit is embedded in the hunk of lavahttps://t.co/wFnObTD9Eq pic.twitter.com/NPUPI5uqI6
— Alfons López Tena (@alfonslopeztena) March 7, 2022
九尾の狐の伝説が残る、殺生石にひとりでやってきました。
縄でぐるっと巻かれた真ん中の大きな岩がそれ…
のはずなのですが、なんと岩は真っ二つに割れて、縄も外れていました。
漫画だったらまさに封印が解かれて九尾の狐に取り憑かれるパターンで、見てはいけないものを見てしまった気がします。 pic.twitter.com/wwkb0lGOM9
— Lillian (@Lily0727K) March 5, 2022
“It’s possessed by the nine-tailed fox, and I feel like I’ve seen something that shouldn’t be seen,” one person wrote on Twitter in a post that has garnered over 77,000 likes.
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The stone was originally registered as a local historical site in 1957 and has been mentioned in several literary works, including The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Matsuo Basho.
Despite the superstitions associated with the stone, local officials and tour groups have attributed its split to natural causes.
