日本京都祇園祭源於驅瘟，已有千餘年歷史，與中國宋代以後的逐疫民俗相若。祇園祭主神素戔嗚尊乘坐神轎，頂端鵲鳥口含青稻，典故源於中國山海經：「有鳥焉，其狀如鵲，名曰青耕，可以御疫」，可見兩國傳統驅瘟民俗文化頗有相似之處。
The Gion Festival in Kyoto, Japan originated from plague-expulsion rituals and can be traced back to more than 1,000 years ago, in a sense similar to Chinese plague-expulsion folk customs from Song dynasty onwards. On the top of the Mikoshi (portable shrine) that carries the Susanoo-no-Mikoto, the main deity in the Gion Festival, is a magpie with a bunch of green rice in its beak. This decoration originated from a passage in a Chinese classic, The Classic of Mountains and Seas, “There are birds, shaped like magpies and named Qing-Geng (literally ‘green plow’ ), that can control diseases.” The plague-expulsion folk culture in China and Japan do share similarities.