EDO PERIOD (18TH-19TH CENTURY), SIGNED TAMETAKA TO

One day while making pilgrimage to the Kumano Shrine, a priest named Anchin lodges in a shoen manor, where the steward’s daughter, the beautiful Kiyohime, falls in love with him. Rejecting her advances with a false promise to return, the priest continues on. When she realizes his deceit, Kiyohime pursues him in a rage; upon seeing that Anchin was escaping her in a ferryman’s boat, Kiyohime’s rage transforms her into a dragon, or in some depictions a snake. Anchin flees into the nearby Dōjo-ji temple, where the priests hid him within the bonsho (hanging bell) of the temple. Soon, Kiyohime finds him and coils around the bell, banging on it several times with the hammer she is represented with in this netsuke. Ultimately, she melts the bell with Anchin inside, killing him.