As if we didn’t have enough problems to deal with nowadays, a legendary cursed stone in Japan seems to have spontaneously split in two.
Known as Sessho-seki, or the Killing Stone, and located near the Japanese town of Nasu, local myths hold that the stone – said to kill anyone who touches it – is the petrified corpse of Tamamo-no-Mae, an evil nine-tailed fox spirit who took the form of a beautiful woman and tried to kill the 12th-century Emperor Toba.
While stories say the fox spirit was later exorcised from the stone, Japanese social media users were alarmed to see that Sessho-seki (pictured right in 2016) had cracked completely in half earlier this month, with much speculation that the demon had been released or that dark forces were set to descend upon the land.
Officials have said this was probably from natural weathering, which is of course exactly the sort of response you would expect officials to give if they didn’t want to panic people about a nine-tailed fox demon being unleashed on the world after hundreds of years.
But look, while we are obviously prepared to offer fealty to our new nine-tailed fox demon queen, with everything else that’s going on in the world she’s just going to have to get in line if she wants to curse and/or rule over us all.
So, Ms Tamamo-no-Mae, if you’re reading this, please take a number and have a seat over there with all our other world-threatening catastrophes; we’ll get to you when we’re available…
