The Death Stone of Nasu Moor (Yoshitoshi, from the "36 Ghosts" series):

After appearing in her true form on the altar, the nine-tailed fox flew off to the plain of Nasu (in what is now Tochigi prefecture). She was hunted down by the famous archers Miura no Suke and Kazusa no Suke. Having been fatally struck by their arrows, her spirit took up residence in a large rock. The rock came to be known as the "Death Stone" because anyone who touched it, or even came too close, died soon afterward.

The Noh play Sesshôseki (The Death Stone) tells how three hundred years later the Zen priest Gennô performed an exorcism on the stone. The play begins with Gennô and a companion returning to Kyoto after having spent the autumn in northeastern Japan. The companion notices that birds fall to the earth when they fly over a large rock. When the travelers approach the rock, a woman suddenly appears and warns them of the rock's deadly reputation. Upon questioning, she admits that she is the spirit of the nine-tailed fox woman, Tamamo no Mae, and promises to appear to them in her true form if Gennô will say prayers for her. Gennô offers flowers, burns incense and chants Buddhist prayers. He then strikes the ground with his hossu staff (a long staff with a thick shock of hair on the end) and intones "Quickly, quickly, go away. Go away." The rock bursts open and Tamamo no Mae appears in a clap of thunder. She reenacts in dance how she managed to bewitch the rulers of India, China, and Japan in turn. In the end, bowing low in submission to Gennô, she promises never to harm human beings again, and vanishes.

In Yoshitoshi's print, Tamamo no Mae stands before the rock; the tufts of pampas grass indicate the location is a desolate, wind-blown moor. Tamamo no Mae appears as a Heian period court lady: her eyebrows are in the painted "moth eyebrows" style (compared to the feathery antennae of a silk-worm moth) and she wears the many-layered robes appropriate to a Heian woman serving at court. The outer robe is decorated with a sinister spider-web pattern; the golden brown inner robe may indicate her true fox nature. The geese appear to be having trouble flying. This may be a reference to the Noh play's image of birds falling dead when they pass over the rock.