Subject
Kitsune 狐
The fox, which of Japan’s uncanny beings lives closest to people. The old records treat it not as a marvel from somewhere else but as a neighbour — with ground of its own, grievances of its own, an etiquette of its own, and standing business with the households whose road it crosses.
Notes
- The Fox Next Door In old records the fox is less a demon than a neighbor: it asks leave, sets a penance, swears oaths, comes when called. What the sources say, and where they stop.
- The Name on the House Japanese possession as the records kept it: a spirit that could be fed and sent away, and a name fixed to a household that no rite removed.
- She Was Named for Her Own Poem Abe no Seimei's fox mother left a poem on a paper door. The kudzu leaf in its last line was in the poem long before it was her name.
- The Stone Has Split Before In 2022 the killing stone at Nasu cracked and the press announced a fox set loose. The oldest telling ends with the stone broken; the nine tails are recent.
- Kokkuri Came Off an American Ship The fox, dog and tanuki in the name were pasted on afterwards. The oldest account of kokkuri traces it to a wrecked American ship and calls it table-turning.
- Kitsunebi Was One Fire of Twelve Foxfire had a catalogue around it: twelve kinds of fire, six named local ones, a fire only you can see, and a wet-nurse hanged for inventing a fire pillar.
- They Picked Him Because He Believed in Inari A Kobe paper reported a couple arrested for the money-doubling trick. They chose their marks by asking around for who was devout, and it worked dozens of times.
Volumes
Kwaidanote Casefiles
RATHER THAN LOOK AT ME
Five Stories of Japanese Horror Drawn from Strange Records
Someone wrote these things down. That much is certain.
Included with Kindle Unlimited
Japanese Horror Folktales Collection
KITSUNE
Tales of the Fox Yokai
Twenty-five Japanese tales of the kitsune — the fox that dens under the storehouse floor, holds an office at Inari's shrines, and has standing business with the people whose road it crosses.
Included with Kindle Unlimited