Tamamo-no-Mae: The Nine-Tailed Fox to Nasu

The story begins in China. In the version told by Hokusai, the nine-tailed fox first appears there and possesses Daji, a concubine of King Zhou, the last ruler of the Shang dynasty. She enchants the king and brings on a reign of terror, and a rebellion ends the dynasty. Yin, in present-day Anyang, was the final Shang capital, so its ruins mark the legend's opening act. The tale does not name a spot; the pin marks Yinxu.

Precisión del lugar: The legend names only the Shang court, so the pin marks the Yin ruins at Anyang as its capital.

In the otogizōshi, Tamamo-no-Mae is a courtesan under Emperor Konoe, who reigned from 1142 to 1155. Beautiful and able to answer any question, she is his favourite. Then the emperor falls gravely ill, and the astrologer Abe no Yasuchika exposes her as a fox spirit. The court sat in Heian-kyō (Kyoto) from 794, so the Heian Palace site stands for the setting.

Precisión del lugar: The legend does not say where in the court the scenes happen; the pin marks the Heian Palace site in Kyoto.

Exposed, the fox flees to the plains of Nasu. The emperor sends Kazusa-no-suke and Miura-no-suke to kill her. At this shrine in Ōtawara, local tradition holds that she hid here before the punitive force finally brought her down. Centuries later the poet Bashō wrote in Oku no Hosomichi that he went to see the ancient grave of Tamamo-no-Mae at Nasu no Shinohara.

Precisión del lugar: The legend gives no exact spot for the hunt; this shrine is one traditional location.

Her body becomes the Sesshō-seki, the Killing Stone, in the volcanic mountains of Nasu, where sulphurous hot springs are famous. The stone released poison gas and killed everything that touched it, until the monk Gennō Shinshō exorcised the repentant fox spirit and held a memorial service. On 5 March 2022 the stone split in two, most likely from natural weathering. Visit the site, but gas emissions can close it.

Para el visitante: The area is a tourist park, closed on days when volcanic gas emissions are high.

Tradition says fragments of the Killing Stone flew to other places, and the legend did not end at Nasu. At Isasumi Shrine in Aizu, a sub-shrine to the Killing Stone was reestablished in 1841 to calm the stone's curse. The shared legend later linked two towns: Aizu-Misato and Nasu have been in exchange since 2008, and signed a friendship agreement in 2015.

Precisión del lugar: Tradition links this shrine to a fragment; it is not a proven part of the stone.