This 1938 woodblock is part of a thirty-one print series entitled Utou Hangakan "The Story of the Cormorant" and illustrates the No play of the same name. The play relates the story of an ill-fated nest robber, pursued in the afterworld by one of his prey. According to legend these sand-nesting sea birds wept tears of blood if a fledging was stolen from the nest. Anyone who became tainted with this blood was doomed to a fatal illness. Most of the blocks used to make this series of prints succumbed to another kind of fatality and were destroyed by air raids during World War II. Fortunately the entire suite of prints had been chosen as the Teiten exhibition's special selection the same year in which they were made.