Kitsune
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Kitsune is the Japanese word for fox. Japan has two kinds of fox: the Japanese Red Fox (Hondo kitsune living in Honshu; Vulpes vulpes japonica) and Hokkaido Fox (Kita kitsune living in Hokkaido; Vulpes vulpes schrencki). In Japanese folklore, these animals are believed to possess great intelligence, long life, and magical powers. Foremost among these is the ability to take the shape of a human; a fox is said to learn to do this when it attains a certain age (usually a hundred years, though some tales say fifty). Kitsune usually appear in the shape of a beautiful woman, a pretty young girl, or an old man.
Other powers commonly attributed to the kitsune include possession, the ability to breathe or otherwise create fire, the power to manifest in dreams, and the ability to create illusions so elaborate as to be almost indistinguishable from reality. Some tales go further still, speaking of kitsune with the ability to bend time and space, to drive people mad, or to take such nonhuman and fantastic shapes as a tree of incredible height or a second moon in the sky. Occasionally kitsune are ascribed a characteristic reminiscent of vampires — these kitsune feed on the life or spirit of the humans they come in contact with.
Kitsune are often associated with the deity of rice known as Inari. Originally kitsune were the messengers of Inari, but now the line between the two has become blurred to the point that Inari is sometimes depicted as a fox. Kitsune are connected to both the shinto and Buddhist faiths.
The folkloric kitsune is a type of yōkai. In the context of folklore, the word kitsune is often translated as fox spirit. However, one should not take this to mean that a kitsune is not a living creature, nor that a kitsune is a different creature than a fox. The word spirit is used in its Eastern sense, reflecting a state of knowledge or enlightenment. Any fox who lives sufficiently long, therefore, can be a fox spirit. There are two major types of kitsune, the myobu, or celestial fox — those associated with Inari, who are presented as benevolent — and the nogitsune, or wild fox (literally "field fox"), who are often, though not always, presented as malicious.
Kitsune are often noted for their tails — a fox may possess as many as nine of them. Generally, an older and more powerful fox will possess a greater number of tails, and some sources say that a fox grows an additional tail for each hundred or thousand years it has lived. However, the foxes that appear in the tales almost always possess one, five, or nine tails.
When a kitsune gains nine tails, its fur becomes silver, white, or gold. These kyūbi no kitsune ("nine-tailed foxes") gain the power of infinite vision. Similarly, in Korea, a fox that lives a thousand years is said to turn into a kumiho (literally "nine-tail fox"), but the Korean fox is always depicted as evil, unlike the Japanese fox, which can be either benevolent or malevolent. Chinese folklore also has fox spirits with many similarities to kitsune, including the possibility of nine tails.
In some stories, kitsune have difficulty hiding their tail — usually the foxes in these stories have only one, which may be an indication that this is a weakness born of inexperience — when they take human form; the observant protagonist sees through the fox's disguise when the drunken or careless fox allows its tail to show.
In Japanese folklore, the kitsune are often presented as tricksters — sometimes very malevolent ones. The trickster kitsune employ their magical powers to play tricks on people; those portrayed in a favorable light tend to choose as targets overly-proud samurai, greedy merchants, and boastful commoners, while the more cruel kitsune tend to abuse poor tradesmen and farmers or Buddhist monks.
However, there is a second common portrayal: as a lover. These love stories usually involve a young human male and a kitsune who takes the form of a woman. Sometimes the kitsune is assigned the role of seductress, but often these stories are romantic in nature. Such a story usually involves the young man (unknowingly) marrying the fox, and emphasizes the devotion of the fox-wife. Many of these stories also possess a tragic element — they usually end with the discovery of the fox, who then must leave her husband.
The oldest known story of a fox-wife, which provides a folk etymology of the word kitsune, is an exception. In this story, the fox takes the shape of a woman and marries a human male, and the two, in the course of spending several happy years together, have several children. She is ultimately revealed as a fox when, terrified by a dog, she returns to her fox shape to hide, in the presence of many witnesses. She prepares to depart her home, but her husband prevails upon her, saying, "Now that we have spent so many years together, and I have had several children by you, I cannot simply forget you. Please come and sleep with me." The fox agrees, and from then on returns to her husband each night in the shape of a woman, leaving again each morning in the shape of a fox. Therefore, she comes to be called Kitsune — because, in the classical Japanese, "kitsu-ne" means "come and sleep", while "ki-tsune" means "always comes".
The human progeny of human-kitsune marriages are generally held to possess special physical and/or supernatural qualities. The specific nature of these qualities, however, varies widely from one source to another. Among those who are said to have got such extraordinary power is the famous onmyoji Abe no Seimei, who is said to be a son of a kitsune hanyō.
Rain falling from a clear sky — a sun shower — is sometimes called kitsune no yomeiri or "the kitsune's wedding".
Kitsune in fiction
Embedded in popular folklore as they are, kitsune have made appearances in many contemporary Japanese works. The digimon Renamon from the third season of the Digimon anime was inspired by the kitsune, as was Sonic the Hedgehog's two-tailed sidekick Tails. The SNES/Super Famicom game Shadowrun features a female shaman named Kitsune. She can transform into a fox which is also her totem animal. She is an extensive magic user. Two Pokémon, the Vulpix and the Ninetales, are undoubtedly derived from the mythical nine-tailed fox. In some Zelda games, Keaton is a yellow 'ghost fox'. Shippo from InuYasha is a kitsune as well, as is Ryutarou from Pom Poko. A shapeshifting kyūbi no kitsune named Sakura is one of the main characters of the anime Hyper Police. Also, the spirit of a kyūbi no kitsune, called the Kyūbi no Yōko (Nine-tailed demon fox), was sealed within Uzumaki Naruto the main character of Naruto. Kurama, a main character of YuYu Hakusho, is a reincarnated kitsune. Konno Mitsune of Love Hina is almost exclusively referred to as Kitsune due to her sly prankster nature.
In anime, kitsune are sometimes depicted in a manner similar to non-furry catgirls, usually as female, seductive, and fond of alcohol.
A few Western authors have also made use of the kitsune legends. Neil Gaiman's The Sandman: The Dream Hunters is a short story featuring a kitsune protagonist, lushly illustrated by Yoshitaka Amano. Gaiman also mentions Kitsune briefly in his novel American Gods. One of the two main characters of Andi Watson's comic Skeleton Key is a transplanted kitsune with a sweet tooth. In the realm of novels, Kij Johnson's The Fox Woman likewise features a kitsune. Both of the latter characters are named "Kitsune". Whitewolf Games' Werewolf: The Apocalypse roleplaying game also features a race of shapeshifting fox-men known as "Kitsunes". In the Magic: the Gathering collectible card game, the kitsune appear in the Champions of Kamigawa block as a race of noble, plains-dwelling samurai and clerics.
There is a Japanese dish called kitsune udon, a type of udon soup so named because kitsune are said to have a particular fondness for the baked tofu (atsuage) it contains.
External links
- The Kitsune Page (http://www.coyotes.org/kitsune/kitsune.html)
- Foxtrot's Guide to Kitsune Lore (http://www.comnet.ca/~foxtrot/kitsune/)
- Kitsune, Kumiho, Huli Jing, Fox - Fox spirits in Asia, and Asian fox spirits in the West (http://academia.issendai.com/fox-index.shtml) A extensive bibliography of fox-spirit books.
References
- Nozaki, Kiyoshi. Kitsune — Japan's Fox of Mystery, Romance, and Humor. Tokyo: The Hokuseidô Press, 1961.de:Kitsune