Sesshoseki, or "the Slaughter Stone"
We returned to Kurobane and from there we went to see the Slaughter Stone of Nasu. [According to legend, when Lady Tamamo, loved by Emperor Konoe (r.1139-1155), was found to be a fox in human guise and was put to death, her fox-soul turned itself into this noxious stone.]

The lord's caretaker, my friend Joboji, lent us horses for the excursion. The man leading my horse asked me for a poem. What an artistic request for a stablehand to make, I thought, and composed the following verse for him:

Turn across that moor,
O horseman, for I hear
A cuckoo singing there!

The Slaughter Stone was in a mountain niche where there was a hot spring. The stone's poisonous vapors were as yet unspent, and bees and moths lay dead all around in such heaps that one could not see the color of the sand beneath.

Saigyo's Willow at Ashino
The poet Saigyo's weeping willow that grew "Where pure, crystal waters flowed" was in the village of Ashino. There we found it, still growing on a bank between rice paddies.

Lord Ashino had often urged me to see this willow, and I used to wonder about it. And now, there I was, actually standing in the shhade of that very tree!

One whole paddy field
Was planted ere I moved on
From that willow tree!