recovery of the sick emperor, and then tried to induce him to approach it, under the plea of honouring it with his presence. This request, as he foresaw, was not granted, so he then induced the courtiers of both sexes to follow his own example, and at last only the favourite remained. She had avoided to the last by many cunning artifices every attempt made by Abe to get her within the precincts of the shrine. But she was at last without any excuse; even the emperor became suspicious, as the twenty-one days of fasting and prayer by Abe approached an ending; so she was compelled to go. The moment she stepped upon the matting at the foot of the shrine she was transformed into a white-visaged nine-tailed fox, and then vanished. The Emperor recovered and lived for some years after.
Two brave warriors and skilful archers were ordered by the Emperor to seek the fox and destroy it. The search was tedious, but at last it was found in the wild plain of Nasu, in the province of Shiinotsuke. Surrounding the place with men so that it could not escape, they unearthed and shot it. Immediately a large rock appeared on the spot, and such was its power of destruction, that no beast or bird ever approached it and survived; no mortal, even, was safe. At length a fence had to be erected round it, to keep the unwary or ignorant from harm.
About fifty years after, a priest of a religious sect, then but lately founded as an offshoot of some older Buddhist sects, devoted himself to subduing the demon, and, taking with him a large hammer, approached the dreaded rock, reciting prayers, and then struck it violently, keeping time to his chanting and breaking large pieces off. At length the figure of the beautiful Tama Mono Maye appeared, and she reproached him for hurting her; but the priest was well prepared to resist her spells; so he continued to pray that the soul thus confined within the demon might be purified and released, and become a spirit absorbed into eternity.
His prayers seem to have succeeded, as the rock has ever since been harmless.