This Stone is Killing Innocent Animals

Or is it?

Is this stone in Japan causing the deaths of the animals around it?

In the Japanese town of Nasu, there is a boulder called the Killing Stone, or Sesshō-seki 殺生石, said to imprison the spirit of an evil fox.

Tamamo-no-Mae was an evil nine-tailed fox who seduced Emperor Konoe. Over years, she secretly sucked the emperor’s life force and would have killed him if she hadn’t been discovered by a sorcerer with a queer eye for the yōkai.

The emperor’s men killed her, but her spirit entered the stone. There she lay, locked up tighter than my wallet at church, until almost a thousand years later, on March 5, 2022, the stone suddenly broke in half.

The Japanese folklore community gasped. Could Tamamo-no-Mae really be on the loose? There’s no way she could be walking around whacking folks, right?

Well, consider this. On December 7, 2022, months after the stone split, the eight wild boars were found near the stone, dead. Not only that, locals would occasionally stumble across the body of a fox or tanuki nearby.

Now, my father was a scientist, and he taught me from a young age to think scientifically, to consider all reasonable possibilities before jumping to supernatural conclusions. He was also an abusive drunk, so I pretty much disregard everything he said.* Therefore, I think the dead animals are undeniable proof of Tamamo-no-Mae’s handiwork.

However, I’m willing to entertain more “scientific” explanations, if only to show you how ridiculous they are. The Killing Stone sits in an area with a lot of geothermal activity, where the ground passes gas, the noxious kind.

While these gasses may not harm your average human walking by, they might be enough to kill some unlucky animals whose noses are inches from the ground.

But really, it was probably Tamamo-no-Mae.

* just kidding, love my dad