TEASER: This episode tells the story of one of Japanese folklore’s most infamous yokai (supernatural beings). The kitsune, “fox-spirit” or “fox-witch” has deep roots, millennias-old, in central Japan. The use of the word spirit conjures ghosts to western minds but the Japanese are using it to mean “supernatural or enlightened being”. This is why kitsune is also translated to fox-witch and, in many ways, this is a more accurate name within the western context. This shapeshifting spirit was believed to be the most cunning of yokais, its abilities only increasing with age. For centuries, kitsune have been suspected of performing kitsune-tsuki or “fox possession,” which were made easier by its ability to shapeshift into the form of a human woman. For this last episode on our 2024 Witches series, we’re tracing the history of Japanese fox-witches and the phenomenon of fox possession.
Marissa: Some time in medieval Japan, a Buddhist monk is called to the bedside of a sick man. The monk quickly realized that something strange was happening:
“As long as he chanted a formula, the patient was cured. If he stopped, however, the disease would return at once…. Making a vow to cure the patient at any cost, the monk continued chanting the formula. Then, possessed by a spirit, the patient said, “I am a fox. I won’t surrender easily, so don’t try to force me!” The monk asked, “Why?” The patient replied, “This man killed me in his previous life, and I am taking revenge on him.”
Elizabeth: The patient did not survive this possession. A year passes and the monk again finds himself at a sick person’s bedside. This time, it was one of his own disciples who lay sick. While the monk is attending to his sick pupil, a dog-walking friend stops by for a visit and ties his dog to a post. The dog noisily resists this confinement so the monk asks his friend to set him free:
“As soon as the dog was released, it ran into the room of the sick disciple and came out with a fox in its mouth. Although the visitor tried to restrain the dog, it would not release the fox but bit it to death. It was evident that the dead person [from a year ago] had been reborn as a dog to take revenge on the fox. Ah! Revenge knows no limits.”
MarissaL …End scene!
This story introduces one of Japanese folklore’s most infamous yokai (supernatural beings). The kitsune, “fox-spirit” or “fox-witch” has deep roots, millennias-old, in central Japan. The use of the word spirit conjures ghosts to western minds but the Japanese are using it to mean “supernatural or enlightened being”. This is why kitsune is also translated to fox-witch and, in many ways, this is a more accurate name within the western context. This shapeshifting spirit was believed to be the most cunning of yokais, its abilities only increasing with age. For centuries, kitsune have been suspected of performing kitsune-tsuki or “fox possession,” which were made easier by its ability to shapeshift into the form of a human woman.
For this last episode on our 2024 Witches series, we’re tracing the history of Japanese fox-witches and the phenomenon of fox possession.
I’m Marissa.
And I’m Elizabeth
Marissa: and we are your historians for this episode of Dig.
…
Elizabeth: As you hopefully already know, we have a co-authored book coming out on October 15, 2024! We have a lot of people to thank for helping us get to the point of publishing a beautiful, magenta-jacketed book about Spiritualism – and top of that list are all of our Patreon supporters. Our patrons funded research trips to Lily Dale, the purchase of rare and weird books we needed, subscriptions to digital newspaper archives, and writing retreats to get this beauty done. We couldn’t have done any of this without yall – especially our Auger and Excavator level patrons: Lisa, Karl, Karen, Jessy, Maria, Denise, Edward, Lauren, Colin, and Susan! We can’t thank you enough. Listener, if you enjoy what we do here but aren’t yet a patron of this show, it’s easy: just go to patreon.com/digpodcast to learn more.
Marissa: The indigenous people of Japan are called the Ainu. Most folklorists agree that tales about shapeshifting foxes did not originate with the Ainu. But they are ancient enough to have originated with some of Japan’s earliest inhabitants. Later migrations of various ethnic groups brought peoples whose exact identity are unknown to settle in the Mino and Owari provinces of central Japan. The peoples of these provinces maintained a shared culture and it was within this culture that the seeds of kitsune were planted.
Elizabeth: During the 6th century, the Yamato clan consolidated power across much of Japan, including the Mino and Owari provinces. The Yamato established a Chinese-style imperial dynasty across the entire island. The shapeshifting fox-loving people of Mino and Owari provinces allied themselves with the Yamato clan. The Yamato’s religious culture, which included ancestor worship, incorporated the fox stories of the Mino and Owari people and eventually evolved into the national religion of Shinto.
Marissa: This environment produced the earliest versions of kitsune mythology. There are many versions of every story that will be told here today, including the one we opened the show with. As always, we rely on scholars who specialize in the particular topics we cover. So I culled these stories, and the versions in which they appear here, from such esteemed scholars as Kyoko Motomochi Nakamura, Michael Dylan Foster, Karen Ann Smyers, Koyoshi Nozaki, and more. You should know that schoalrs disagree over whether kitsune are native to Japan or imported from China or Korea. I found the scholars arguing for a native version of kitsune to be most convincing. (See our show notes for more details). All of this is to say that the story I’m about to paraphrase is, to the best of our knowledge, one of the oldest iterations of kitsune folklore.
Elizabeth: In ancient Japan, a young man from Mino Province set out on horseback, his heart set on finding a bride. As he rode through the verdant countryside, fate smiled upon him. There, amidst the rolling hills, he encountered a maiden of extraordinary beauty.
“What brings you to these parts, fair lady?” he inquired, his curiosity piqued. With a coy smile, she replied, “I seek a good husband, kind sir.” Their eyes met, and in that moment, a spark ignited. Without hesitation, the young man proposed, and to his delight, she accepted. Together, they journeyed to his home, where they were swiftly wed.
As the year drew to a close, joy filled their household. In the twelfth month, the young wife gave birth to a healthy baby boy. Coincidentally, their dog also welcomed a litter, with one puppy standing out from the rest.
But something was amiss. The puppy, still small and weak, displayed an unusual aggression towards the new mother. It would snarl, bark, and even attempt to bite her at every opportunity. Terrified, the woman pleaded with her husband to dispose of the creature, but his compassionate nature stayed his hand.
Months passed, and the tension grew. One day, as the woman carried refreshments to the servants, the now-grown dog charged at her, nearly sinking its teeth into her flesh. In that moment of pure terror, an astonishing transformation occurred – the woman suddenly morphed into a wild fox and fled into the forest.
Marissa: Heartbroken and bewildered, the young husband called out to his beloved. His love for her burned bright, strengthened by the bond of their child. “I cannot forget you,” he cried into the night. “Please, come always and sleep with me.” To his amazement, the fox-woman agreed. From that day forward, she would visit him under the cover of darkness, slipping away with the first light of dawn.
Consumed by his complex emotions, the husband poured his heart into a poem. In delicate brushstrokes, he captured his undying love and the bittersweet pain of their nightly reunions, knowing she would inevitably depart with the morning mist. As a testament to their extraordinary union, he named their son Kitsune.
Young Kitsune grew to be a remarkable child, blessed with prodigious strength that soon became legendary throughout the province. As he matured, his reputation only grew, and he was recognized as the progenitor of the esteemed Kitsune-no-atae clan, a family that would leave an indelible mark on the history of Mino Province.
Elizabeth: The Japanese folklore surrounding foxes is unique compared to fox lore in other cultures because in Japanese stories, the fox is a good and positive character. Japanese scholar Kiyoshi Nozaki points out that the Japanese in the Mino and Owari provinces had harmonious relationships with foxes because they kept no small livestock that foxes might have preyed upon. In fact, foxes came to be revered because they preyed on rats who damaged Japanese rice paddies. Rather than a menace or pest, then, ancient Japanese regarded foxes as majestic and virtuous animals. The fox’s negative traits were only emphasized in later centuries as a result of Chinese, Indian, and Korean influence (more on this later).
Marissa: This is why the earliest Japanese versions of the kitsune tale have a happy ending. The husband is deeply connected to his wife and unable to function without her love. The fox woman and her husband make their love work, spawning generations of mixed human and fox-spirit children that inhabit Mino and Owari for centuries to come. This is good evidence of the Japanese origins of this tale because human-spirit unions were a celebrated aspect of ancient Japanese culture. They believed that Japanese people themselves originated from the mating of a goddess, Amaterasu Ōmikami, and a human man. Korean and Chinese versions of the tale (later versions) portray the kitsune in a negative light, and the union between the kitsune and human to be an abomination that dooms their future.
While the kitsune story predates the introduction of Buddhism to Japan, the earliest written versions of the tale demonstrate Buddhist influence. Buddhism was introduced to Japan by Korean diplomats in the middle of the 6th century CE. The King of the Korean kingdom of Baekje gifted an image of the Buddha and recorded scripture to their Japanese neighbors.
Elizabeth: Japanese folklore had only been shared orally for centuries until 712 CE, which marks the year the Kojiki was produced. By this time, Buddhism was firmly established there. The Kojiki is an imperial history that presents traditional folklore as historical fact. It did not contain a kitsune story. In 720 CE, the Nihon shoki, a subsequent work added more mythological and dynastic storytelling to this corpus. Still, the kitsune story was absent. In 787 CE, a Buddhist monk named Kyōkai set himself the task of transcribing Japan’s oral tradition in several volumes. The kitsune story appears in this work. This marks the time when kitsune tales became frozen in time. Stopping, or at least slowing the rapid evolution that is typical of oral traditions. This is the version of the tale we told above.
Marissa: This early version of the tale gave rise to a folk etymology for the Japanese word “kitsune,” meaning fox. The story suggests that “kitsu-ne” means “come and sleep,” while “ki-tsune” translates to “come always” – a poetic nod to the nightly visits of the fox-wife. While this enchanting explanation captures the imagination, scholars believe the true origin of “kitsune” is far more mundane. They suggest that “kitsu” simply mimics the sound of a fox’s bark in traditional Japanese, with “ne” added as a term of endearment.
Elizabeth: Scholars point out that the kitsune story, by 787, had already evolved to be attractive to Buddhist readers. When the fox woman asks her husband to kill the hostile puppy, he refuses to do so, demonstrating a compassion for all living things that is characteristic of Buddhism.
Kyōkai also recorded a kind of sequel to the kitsune tale we told at the top of the show.
Kyōkai tells the story of Mino no Kitsune, the fourth-generation descendant of the legendary fox-woman and her husband. This extraordinary woman possessed strength to rival a hundred men, a gift passed down through her unusual lineage.
But with great power comes great temptation. At Ogawa Market, Mino no Kitsune used her incredible might for nefarious purposes, robbing unsuspecting merchants of their wares. Her reign of terror seemed unstoppable until fate intervened.
One fateful day, a challenger appeared – a woman blessed by the Thunder Spirit. In a clash that would be remembered for generations, Mino no Kitsune met her match. Defeated and humbled, she vowed to abandon her life of crime, bringing peace back to the market and redeeming her family’s legacy.
Marissa: This tale also demonstrates Buddhist influence, which scholars suspect was added to the pre-Buddhist storyline by Kyōkai to give coherence to the collection. Kyōkai’s Buddhist additions are much more apparent in this tale than in the first one we told. In this sequel, the kitsune uses her powers for evil and the story of the Thunder Spirit, which had always belonged to the Shinto pantheon, was changed to appeal to Buddhism. According to Kyōkai, the Thunder Spirit’s grandfather, called the Venerable Dōjō, had become a Buddhist monk. Therefore, in this story, the Thunder Spirit represented the power of Buddhism to exorcise the kitsune of its evil.
Morality tales such as this one belong to the genre of setsuwa. Setsuwa were popular versions of myths and folklore that were altered from their ancient versions to teaching Buddhist morality. They were often accepted by the Japanese public as if they were historical accounts of real events. For centuries, setsuwa remained a staple genre for popular audience. With the growth of setsuwa, kitsune stories proliferated and they moved further and further away from their earliest forms. Initially, kitsune remained ambiguous figures, not particularly virtuous, but more often victims than predators.
Elizabeth: One anthology from the early 12th century offered the following kitsune story paraphrased here:
In the year 896, in the quaint village of Ashimori in Bitchu Province, there lived a man named Kaya no Yoshifuji. Yoshifuji’s wife had gone on a trip, leaving him alone in their home. He was lonely and in search of female company.
One balmy evening, he encountered a beautiful woman standing by the roadside. Her elegant kimono and delicate features immediately caught his eye. Intrigued, Yoshifuji approached her and struck up a conversation. She initially tried to run away from him but he grabbed her. He asked her who she was and she answered: “Nobody.”
Eventually, Yoshifuji returns with the woman to her home, which is impressive and filled with servants. Days turned into weeks, and weeks into months. Kuzunoha (her real name) and Yoshifuji fell deeply in love, eventually marrying and starting a family together. Their life seemed idyllic, filled with joy and contentment. “He was so taken with her that he forgot all about his wife. As for his house and children, he never gave them a thought. He and the girl pledged each other eternal love.”
Marissa: But from the perspective of his own household, Yoshifuji had suddenly vanished without a trace. His disappearance caused great distress among his family and fellow villagers. They searched far and wide, but to no avail. In their desperation, his family turned to spiritual means, praying fervently, reading Buddhist sutras, and even carving an image of the Eleven-Headed Kannon in hopes of his safe return.
Unbeknownst to his worried family, Yoshifuji had entered a mysterious realm. He found himself in what seemed to be a grand household, welcomed by a beautiful woman who introduced herself as his wife. In this new world, time flowed differently. Yoshifuji lived what he perceived as years, even fathering a child with his fox wife.
However, on the thirteenth evening after his disappearance in the human world, a peculiar event occurred. A man with a stick appeared in Yoshifuji’s otherworldly home, causing his new family to flee in terror. The man prodded Yoshifuji, forcing him out of a narrow passageway.
Back in the human world, the people at Yoshifuji’s home were still in mourning when suddenly, a strange, dark, monkey-like creature crawled out from under the nearby storehouse. Amidst the commotion of shocked onlookers, a voice cried out, “It’s me!” It was Yoshifuji, returned from his supernatural sojourn.
Yoshifuji, his mind still clouded by the fox’s illusion, began to speak excitedly about his wonderful new life and child. Confused and concerned, his family sent a servant to investigate the storehouse. As they approached, foxes scattered in every direction, revealing the truth of Yoshifuji’s experience.
Although the space under the storehouse was cramped and small, it was there that Yoshifuji had spent his missing days. What had seemed like thirteen years in the fox’s realm had been merely thirteen days in the human world. The realization dawned on everyone: Yoshifuji had been bewitched by a fox spirit.
Concerned for his mental and spiritual well-being, Yoshifuji’s family summoned both a Buddhist monk and an onmyoji (a practitioner of esoteric cosmology) to pray for him and perform exorcisms. They bathed him repeatedly, hoping to cleanse him of the fox’s influence. When he “finally came back to himself he was horribly embarrassed,” but he “lived on in good health another decade and died in his sixty-first year.”
Elizabeth: The kitsune in this story much more resembles the witches and phenomenon of bewitchment that we are used to. Yoshifuji is transported to a kitsune netherworld where he experiences years of happy familyhood while his human family is left behind. And this bewitchment necessitates plenty of spiritual cleansing, causing significant embarrassment on Yoshifuji’s behalf. But the kitsune is not herself evil. In fact, she attempts to avoid Yoshifuji’s semi-predatory advances and only bewitches him after he won’t leave her alone.
Marissa: In this version of the story, Yoshifuji does not come out of this story looking very good. He abandons his first family with zero regret and then, abandons his fox wife equally as quickly. The moral appears to be something about not taking one’s family for granted. There is not much emphasis the kitsune’s deception or implication that this was all an elaborate set-up to trick Yoshifuji. But one can kind of see how this story might evolve into a femme-fatale style story of bewitchment, with a nefarious, shapeshifting fox-witch who sets up a good and honest man just to play with his mind and heart and to deprive his family of their patriarch.
Elizabeth: Following this 12th-century anthology, tales of kitsune-tsuki or “fox-possession” flourished, capturing the popular imagination. Setsuwa remained popular until the 14th century when they began falling out of fashion. Instead, the Japanese public began to voraciously consume the otogizōshi genre which were composed to entertain rather than to preach. Otogizōshi promoted increasingly sensational tales of kitsune-tsuki, integrating Chinese and Korean influences that rendered the kitsune as a malevolent rather than beneficent, or even ambiguous, figure.
Marissa: Even so, older-style Japanese morality tales continued to feature kitsune, anchoring kitsune to Japan prior to Chinese influence. For example, in 1866, British diplomat A. B. Freeman-Mitford traveled to Japan as part of the British delegation dispatched to oversee the Meiji Restoration. Freeman-Mitford was fascinated by Japanese culture and after returning home, he wrote his best-known work, Tales of Old Japan. In Freeman-Mitford’s telling, based on the tales he was told while traveling through rural Japan, the legend surrounding the kitsune had evolved considerably and in a very Japanese way. Here’s the story he titled “The Foxes’ Wedding”:
In a time beyond memory, in a place beyond naming, lived a young white fox named Fukuyémon. As he came of age, he shaved his forelock in the tradition of feudal Japan, ready to take on the responsibilities of adulthood.
With his father’s retirement, Fukuyémon inherited the family business. Determined to prove himself, he worked tirelessly to improve their fortunes while adhering to the age-old customs of his kind.
When the time came to seek a bride, Fukuyémon followed tradition to the letter. He engaged a middleman who spoke of a beautiful young lady-fox from an esteemed family. Their first meeting was a success, and soon gifts were exchanged, intermediaries rewarded, and a wedding date set.
On the day of the ceremony, a rare and auspicious event occurred – the sun shone through the rain, a phenomenon known as hideriame or kitsune no yomeiri – “the foxes’ wedding.” It was under this blessed sky that Fukuyémon brought his bride home.
Their union was one of love and prosperity. Soon, a litter of fox kits brought joy to the household, delighting Fukuyémon’s father with healthy grandchildren. When the time came, the young foxes were taken to the Inari shrine, placed under the protection of the kami to shield them from the dangers of the world.
As years passed, Fukuyémon’s family grew, his business flourished, and he found himself living a life of contentment. With each passing year, his joy only increased, a testament to the blessings that come from honoring tradition and family.
Elizabeth: Mitford’s version is a morality tale meant to encourage adherence to traditional Japanese customs. Fukuyémon and his family are rewarded for adhering to tradition, living long, happy, prosperous, and fecund lives. The shrine mentioned in the story, that of Inari, refers to Inari Ōkami, another Shinto spirit. Inari shrines are normally adorned with images of foxes and within Japanese folk custom and popular religion, Inari is portrayed as a fox. During Fukuyémon’s visit to the Inari shrine to protect his offspring, he beseeches the spirit that “they might be delivered from dogs.”
Foxes have always been associated with the Shinto deity Inari. Perhaps as a result of foxes’ role in controlling the rat population in Japanese rice paddies, ancient Japanese developed a practice of leaving offerings of fox urine on the shrines of the deity Inari, the god of rice. Slowly, Inari became associated with foxes and even to this day, Inari shrines often feature fox imagery.
Marissa: The wedding theme is also of Japanese origins. In Japanese, the foxes’ wedding translates to kitsune no yomeiri. Kitsune no yomeiri is used in Japan as a metaphor to refer to unexplained phenomenon such as ghostly lights and sunshowers. It’s not entirely clear why this language is used but linguists and folklorists have some ideas.
One explanation is that it can be said that when it rains, even when the sky is clear, people may feel like they have been tricked into seeing a somewhat impossible situation, like some version of kitsune-tsuki. In traditional Japan, there is also a record of people who believed that a fox’s wedding would take place during a sunshower. Some researchers have suggested that since mountain bases experienced a lot of rain even when the sky was clear, people thought that foxes made rain fall in order to prevent people from going up the mountain and seeing the fox’s wedding. Another explanation is that since some wives cry (rain) even on a happy (sunny) day, kitsune called forth such strange weather as a sunshower.
Elizabeth: It’s difficult to pinpoint the introduction of Chinese traditions into Japan when it comes to kitsune lore because even the earliest written versions have some similar elements to Chinese stories. Indeed, Chinese influence reached Japan about 200 years before the first kitsune tales were recorded. Still, we know that Japanese kitsune was it’s own, pre-existing phenomenon prior to contact with the Chinese. Granted, most scholars agree that until the Heian period (794-1185 CE), Chinese influence appears to have been limited to cultural elements that strengthened Japanese statecraft such as Confucianism, writing systems, Buddhism, architecture, and political culture.
Mrissa: But during the Heian period, we see a much broader Chinese cultural influence in the areas of literature and religion. For example, it wasn’t until 1100 CE that Chinese scholar Ōe no Masafusa introduced China’s most infamous fox spirit story to Japan in his work Kobiki. Kobiki, which translated into “fox-haunting record,” introduced the story of the queen-consort Daji (Japanese pronunciation: Dakki) who was really a nine-tailed fox seduced the Shang dynasty’s last monarch, King Zhou (Japanese: Chū-ō) leading to the dynasty’s collapse.
The delayed introduction of the femme-fatale nature of the fox-spirit placed it within the realm of evil witchcraft, transforming the virtuous kitsune of Buddhist and Shinto domains into something else. This explains why the malevolent aspect of kitsune appears much later in Japan than it does elsewhere.
Elizabeth: To account for this evolution of the kitsune, the Japanese developed several classes of kitsune: zenko (also called Inari foxes) which are benevolent foxes associated with the Shinto deity Inari; and yako which are mischievous or malicious kitsune; tenko which were the oldest, most enlightened, celestial foxes; and the worst of all, ninko, which were invisible foxes who performed demonic possession and could not be seen by humans until it was too late and they were already possessed.
It’s probably as a result of Chinese influence that the Japanese fox-witch took on different forms related to age and levels of enlightenment. Later Japanese folktales say that kitsune grow more tails as they get older. At a certain point in their very long lifetimes, they can take human form, even later they attain infinite wisdom and can perceive anything happening anywhere in the world. Once they reach nine tails, at around 1,000 years old, they are transformed into celestial foxes. These aspects of kitsune have China written all over it.
Marissa: China has an even longer tradition of fox spirits than Japan. Chinese fox spirits, called húli jīng, are nine-tailed foxes whose hijinks were first documented during China’s Warring States period, as early as the 4th century BCE. Chinese historian Guo Pu was the first to describe the relationship between the fox’s age and its wisdom/skill:
“When a fox is fifty years old, it can transform itself into a woman; when a hundred years old, it becomes a beautiful female, or a spirit medium, or an adult male who has sexual intercourse with women. Such beings are able to know things at more than a thousand miles’ distance; they can poison men by sorcery, or possess and bewilder them, so that they lose their memory and knowledge; and when a fox is thousand years old, it ascends to heaven and becomes a celestial fox.”[1]
Elizabeth: It’s unclear whether the Chinese húli jīng was the first of the fox spirits. Some scholars trace similar lore to ancient India. But the húli jīng was certainly the most transportable of fox lore. Not only did it influence Japanese lore, but it also shaped Vietnamese and Korean mythology.
In Vietnam, hồ ly tinh are characterized by their shapeshifting abilities, most commonly transforming from multi-tailed foxes into beautiful women. The number of tails is often indicative of their age and power. These spirits are attributed with various supernatural powers, including the ability to create illusions, manipulate dreams, and in some narratives, possess humans.
Marissa: Korean Gumiho are even more predatory and significantly more gendered. Gumiho are nine-tailed foxes that can transform into a beautiful woman. Gumiho are often depicted as evil, seductive creatures that lure men with their beauty and sexuality. They then drain the men of their yang, or masculine force, and leave them dead or dissipated. Gumiho are often used as a cautionary symbol of the dangers of female sexuality.
During the 10th and 11th centuries, precisely the time when Chinese and Korean stories were introduced to Japan, the ancient Japanese lore surrounding foxes generally and kitsune specifically took a decided turn. The malevolent or ambiguous kitsune faded to the background, making way for the femme fatale version, an artfully disguised fox spirit with bad intentions who uses her feminine wiles to bewitch unsuspecting men. Still, it wasn’t until the 15th century that this new kitsune became an indispensable part of Japanese mainstream culture. At this point, the most ubiquitous kitsune story in Japan was that of Tamamo no Mae. The story goes like this:
Tamamo no Mae was said to be an exceptionally beautiful and intelligent woman who appeared in the imperial court of Emperor Toba during the late Heian period (around the 12th century). She quickly became a favorite of the emperor due to her vast knowledge of poetry, history, and politics, as well as her stunning beauty.
However, Tamamo no Mae harbored a dark secret – she was actually a malevolent nine-tailed fox spirit in disguise. Her true goal was to bewitch and ultimately destroy the emperor.
Elizabeth: One translation describes Tamamo no Mae’s appearance thusly: “her jade hairpins were splendid, and her dazzling robes were exquisitely woven, A single flutter of her lotus-petal eyelids cast a hundred enchantments, and the half-moon arch of her blue-black eyebrows won her ten thousand hearts. Although she did not powder her face, her complexion was perfectly white, and although she used no rouge, her cheeks were naturally red. Her glistening lips were like a scarlet blossom, and her flawless skin was the same as white snow. Her arms resembled jewels, and her teeth seemed to be made of mother-of-pearl.”
Marissa: As time passed, Emperor Toba fell ill. His courtiers became suspicious of Tamamo no Mae, noticing that the emperor’s health seemed to worsen whenever she was near. They consulted an astrologer named Abe no Yasunari, who used divination to reveal Tamamo no Mae’s true nature as a fox spirit.
Exposed, Tamamo no Mae fled the imperial court. The emperor ordered a great hunt to capture her. Warriors from across Japan joined the pursuit, led by the famous archer Kazusa no Suke and his son Miura no Suke.
The hunt culminated at Nasu no Hara (Nasu Plain) in present-day Tochigi Prefecture. There, Tamamo no Mae was cornered and shot with an arrow. As she died, she transformed back into her true form – a white nine-tailed fox.
However, the story doesn’t end with her death. It contains an addendum. Her spirit was said to have entered a large stone on the plain, which became known as the Sessho-seki (Killing Stone). This stone was believed to emit poisonous gas that killed any living thing that came near it.
Many years later, a Buddhist monk named Genno is said to have performed exorcism rituals on the stone, finally laying Tamamo no Mae’s spirit to rest.
Elizabeth: At this point in Japanese history, the kitsune was not just any woman but specifically a wife. But not the virtuous fox-wives of earlier Japanese lore. Influenced by the Korean tales of yang-sucking fox-witches, Japanese kitsune were now believed to be wives because they NEEDED to drain men’s seed for survival. So the kitsune’s seductive qualities were on display not merely for her own sexual pleasure or for that of her husband but, darkly, to fill her ravenous hunger for male essence. These new gender dynamics are also evidence in the falling away of male kitsune which HAD existed in pre-contact Japan.
Marissa: Recall, this is around the same time when the literary genre of Otogizōshi eclipsed the older, setsuwa morality tales. Otogizōshi, which translates to “companion tale,” was originally the name given to a corpus of 23 short stories written sometime between 1336 and 1573. These creative and sensational stories were less instructive and more entertaining than the old setsuwa tales. These dynamic plots popularized the kitsune figure into a staple of Japanese literature and they became beloved by aristocratic, warrior, and commoner classes in Japan.
Elizabeth: Kitsune appear all over the Otogizōshi though none of them center the kitsune figure. We’ll reference three instances here because they are probably the ones most familiar to Manga-loving listeners. “The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter” (Taketori Monogatari) is one example. While not explicitly focused on kitsune, this classic tale features a princess who is revealed to be a fox spirit, showcasing the connection between humans and supernatural beings. Another is “The Tale of Urashima Tarō,” This story involves a young fisherman who visits the Dragon Palace, where he encounters a kitsune who serves as a guide and warns him about the dangers of overstaying his welcome. And, perhaps most famously, “The Tale of Genji” (note this was written by a woman, Lady Murasaki). Although primarily a human drama, this epic novel features several references to kitsune, including a character who is believed to be possessed by one.
Marissa: As you can see, even though the femme fatale version of the kitsune dominated, Japanese authors still used virtuous or ambiguous kitsune figures to facilitate plotlines in their stories. Literary scholars argue that Otogizōshi revolutionized the public sphere in early modern Japan, for the first time transcending class hierarchies and establishing a realm of public opinion. However, this democratizing literary culture occurred during a time of intense political chaos: the Japanese Warring States period (1467-1603). Numerous powerful warlords, or daimyo, fought for control of the country.
Elizabeth: In 1603, Tokugawa Ieyasu established the Tokugawa Shogunate, which would rule Japan for the next 250 years. The shogunate implemented a system of centralized control, disarming the daimyo and establishing a stable government. During this time, called the Edo period, Japan pursued a “closed country policy,” cutting it off from foreign influence. The Shogunate also instituted a rigid class system, with samurai at the top. The state also worked hard to impose neo-Confucianism on the Japanese public. While Confucianism originated in China, it had been important to Japanese thought for long enough that it was adopted by the authorities as their secret weapon. Much as it did in ancient China, neo-Confucianism emphasized social order, hierarchy, and filial piety. These were all qualities that reinforced the legitimacy of the Shogunate and its overtures to law and order.
Marissa: This turn toward neo-Confucianism was compounded by the Shogunate’s banning of Christian missionaries in the 1630s. Japanese subjects were forbidden from traveling abroad and discouraged from mingling with the very limited number of foreigners who found themselves in its ports. Still, the Shogunate invested heavily in the domestic economy so Japanese people flourished, building wealth and, surprisingly, a distinctive Japanese artistic and literary culture. , the Edo period witnessed a variety of rich artistic innovations such as wood-block prints, kabuki dramas, bunraku puppet theater, and numerous forms of graphic literature which contained lighthearted, satirical stories alongside detailed illustrations (known as Manga).
Student of Japanese literature Sophia Pressler writes: “Through these new art forms, folklore – like that of the tanuki and other yōkai – mingled with popular cultural concerns, veiled political sentiments, and commercial and artistic interests.” Kitsune were central to this very Japanese artistic awakening. For example, the kabuki play A Courtly Mirror of Ashiya Dōman is a Japanese tale centered around a young man named Ashiya Dōman. Dōman, despite his humble origins, is a skilled and ambitious scholar. He gains the attention of the powerful Emperor Saga, who becomes his patron.
Elizabeth: As Dōman rises through the ranks of the imperial court, he encounters a series of challenges and intrigues. He becomes embroiled in a rivalry with another scholar, Abe no Nakamaro, and faces accusations of treason. Dōman must navigate the treacherous waters of court politics while maintaining his integrity and loyalty to the emperor.
The story introduces a kitsune named Tamamo no Mae (sound familiar?), who disguises herself as a beautiful woman and enters the imperial court. She becomes a rival to Ashiya Dōman and uses her magical abilities to manipulate events and sow discord among the courtiers.
Tamamo-no-Mae’s presence adds a supernatural element to the story and creates a sense of mystery and intrigue. She is ultimately exposed as a kitsune and banished from the court, but her actions have a lasting impact on the characters and the overall plot.
The story explores themes of ambition, loyalty, and the dangers of power. It also provides a glimpse into the complex and often ruthless world of the Japanese imperial court during the Heian period. And it used the (by now) quintessential Japanese yokai, the kitsune.
Marissa: Note the kitsune is Tamamo no Mae, that same kitsune Queen who bewitched emperor Toba in the story we told earlier. Since Tamamo no Mae appears in kitsune tales from the 15th to 19th century, it’s possible for literary scholars to trace her evolution in these stories, anchoring kitsune to a specific character and not a fox-witch archetype. Scholars have noted that the earliest versions of Tamamo no Mae presented as a femme fatale- a seamen-sucking fox-demon. During the early Edo period, her story was amended to make her even more evil. She came to haunt the Nasu Plain, filling the Killing Stones with poison and requiring an exorcism by a Buddhist monk.
The exorcism of the evil Tamamo no Mae fox-witch from the Nasu Plain was, scholars say, symbolic of the Shogunate’s ability to impose patriarchal law and order. The Japanese were congratulating themselves for exorcizing educated female influence in government unlike their “inferior” neighbors in China and India who were still reined in by a feminine yoke. It’s hard to imagine 17th-century China and India as anywhere close to feminist utopias but, remember, the Japanese were not traveling abroad so they’re only receiving Chinese and Indian culture remotely, in the form of religion, literature, and art.
Elizabeth: It’s hard to know what the Japanese learned about their neighbors to make them think that these resolute patriarchies had gone soft. But we have some ideas. China, for instance, celebrated some instances of female power, such as Empress Wu Zetian (7th Century), historian Ban Zhao (1st century), and, later, pirate Queen Zheng Yi Sao (18th century- check out our episode about her here) but it was also incredibly common for Chinese women to act as merchants, literary/artistic figures, and even rebels in Chinese society.
India also had its fair share of women who were empowered by education and influence. Razia Sultana, a North Indian native, ascended to the throne of Delhi in the 1230s. After her death, her grave became a sight of pilgrimage. Mirabai was a poet, mystic, and saint (also from North India) who died in 1546. But the cultural celebration of this woman reached its zenith in the late 17th century, coinciding with the Edo period. Edo Japanese would have heard about Indians worshipping her. Nur Jahan was a Persian born in present-day Afghanistan who became a powerful consort to Mughal emperor Jahangir. One unknown Indian poet wrote about her: “Though Nur Jahan be in form a woman, In the ranks of men she’s a tiger-slayer.” Nur Jahan had the most power over India in the 16-teens and 1620s, when the Tokugawa Shogunate was busy imposing its will on its Japanese subjects.
Marissa: The Japanese were congratulating themselves for conquering challenges to their patriarchal authority, female authors like Lady Murasaki (author of the Tal of Genji), and “abominations” like Tomoe Gozen, a Japanese woman warrior from the 13th century. Indeed they did. Neo-Confucian ideology, which emphasized male dominance and female submission, reinforced traditional gender roles and limited women’s opportunities. The lack of access to formal education for most women further constrained their social and economic mobility. Under the Shogunate, women’s property rights were often limited, and their inheritance rights were frequently restricted. Additionally, women were generally expected to remain confined to the home and focus on domestic duties. Since this patriarchal entrenchment coincided with the rise of the irredeemably evil kitsune, literary scholars have used gender analysis to interpret kitsune stories.
Elizabeth: It’s unclear, however, how much influence the Shogunate’s misogyny had on kitsune lore. There is some evidence that the evolution of the kitsune was dominated by the vagaries of genre trends rather than a concerted effort to defame women. Santō Kyōden (1761-1816), for example, depicted Tamamo no Mae in 1808 as a kitsune without any of the original Japanese or Buddhist trappings. Some scholars argue that this was just as much an attempt to slot Tamamo no Mae into the popular genre of katakiuchi (revenge) as it was an attempt to avoid the Shogunate’s censors. Plus, the akuba (evil woman) motif was a shoe-in for adaptations to the gokan and kabuki industries.
These art forms had growing female audiences (because artistic recreation was one of the few acceptable ways for Japanese women to spend their time) who enjoyed seeing female leads. Pressler writes “these kitsune of the Edo period offered an outlet for the women under the Tokugawa regime to imagine and experience a vicarious freedom from the patriarchal structure they were subject to, even if only while within the thrall of a kabuki play or gōkan drama.”
Marissa: This all changed after 1868. After years of dissatisfaction, especially in Kyoto, discontents rebelled against the shogunate and replaced it with a constitutional monarchy with Emperor Meiji at its head. From that point forward, the Japanese government pursued an agenda of Westernization and modernization. Emperor Meiji instituted Shinto as the state religion. Still, Christian missionaries poured onto the Japanese mainland and academics, folklorists, and artists traveled to Japan to document its wonders after hundreds of years of isolation. One such folklorist was Lafcadio Hearn who traveled to Japan in 1890 and published his findings in his 1907 compendium, Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan. Hearn is credited with bringing Japanese literature to the Western world.
Elizabeth: Hearn found that, despite the raging popularity of the femme fatale kitsune of the Edo period, most Japanese commoners around 1900 continued to hold sincere belief in supernatural creatures with Shinto and Buddhist origins. The kitsune was, perhaps, the most prominent of these. He wrote: “The fox does not always appear in the guise of a woman for evil purposes. There are several stories, and one really pretty play, about a fox who took the shape of a beautiful woman, and married a man, and bore him children–all out of gratitude for some favor received–the happiness of the family being only disturbed by some odd carnivorous propensities on the part of the offspring.” This suggests that the ambiguous, and even the virtuous, versions of the kitsune never quite left the folk customs of ordinary Japanese folks.
Marissa: Still, after centuries of stories of kitsunetsuki, fox-spirit-possession was regarded as a legitimate worry. Hearn writes: “The wild fox is also bad. It also sometimes takes possession of people; but it is especially a wizard, and prefers to deceive by enchantment. It has the power of assuming any shape and of making itself invisible; but the dog can always see it, so that it is extremely afraid of the dog. Moreover, while assuming another shape, if its shadow fall[s] upon water, the water will only reflect the shadow of a fox. The peasantry kill [sic] it; but he who kills a fox incurs the risk of being bewitched by that fox’s kindred, or even by the ki, of ghost of the fox. Still if one eat[s] the flesh of a fox, he cannot be enchanted afterwards.”
Marissa: Hearn, ever a romantic, bemoaned the bitter-sweet impact of the Meiji Restoration on Japanese folklore. He wrote: “the omnipotent enemy of superstition is the public school, where the teaching of modern science is unclogged by sectarianism or prejudice; where the children of the poorest may learn the wisdom of the Occident; where there is not a boy or a girl of fourteen ignorant of the great names of Tyndall, of Darwin, of Huxley, of Herbert Spencer… there is no place for ghostly foxes in the beautiful nature-world revealed by new studies to the new generation.”
Within one generation, the natural and the supernatural, which had always occurred alongside one another in Japanese life, were divided forever. Kitsune stories did not, however, lose their power but shifts in their plots revealed the grief the Japanese people felt at the loss of magic from their everyday lives. For example, Meiji version of the “Fox wife” story depict a male householder and his servant (not legal wife) whose true nature as a kitsune is discovered by her master. He throws her out of the house and does not long for her after she is gone. Literary scholars suggest this version of the story shows a recognition that just as the householder uncovered his servant’s true nature, so too were the Japanese discovering the true nature of the world, with their shiny, new, scientific educations. The moral of the story is that one should not long for a past that was a lie.
Elizabeth: While the Meiji Restoration brought about significant changes, kitsune and yokai folklore adapted and evolved to remain relevant. These stories were incorporated into new media, such as anime and manga, and gained international recognition. This adaptation ensured their continued popularity and relevance in contemporary Japanese culture. Interestingly, the return of the Japanese state to the Shinto fold may have resuscitated some of the most ancient Japanese kitsune stories, blending them back into the femme fatale narratives favored during the Edo period.
Marissa: While we know this is perhaps not the episode you were expecting to end our witches series, we hope you see the connections. Despite having completely foreign origins, kitsune and kitsunetsuki folklore will feel familiar to lovers of European supernatural folklore. The familiarities are obvious: kitsune can shapeshift, like witches or werewolves; kitsune are both animal and supernatural being like werewolves; kitsune stories depict people living in close proximity to magical animals like witches and their familiars; kitsune have magical abilities parallel to witches and their allies like spell-casting, healing, divination, and possession; kitsune can be benevolent (like Glenda the good witch) or malevolent (like the Wicked Witch of the West) and are often known to play mischievous tricks on unsuspecting humans, like stealing their coins or killing their cattle. For example, look at this passage from Hearn’s book that describes fox possession:
“Strange is the madness of those into whom demon foxes enter. Sometimes they run naked shouting through the streets. Sometimes they lie down and froth at the mouth, and yelp as a fox yelps. And on some part of the body of the possessed a moving lump appears under the skin, which seems to have a life of its own. Prick it with a needle, and it glides instantly to another place. By no grasp can it be so tightly compressed by a strong hand that it will not slip from under the fingers. Possessed folk are also said to speak and write languages of which they were totally ignorant prior to possession.”
Mania, things crawling under their skin, speaking in tongues, these are the same symptoms that bewitched Europeans complained of when they accused women in their towns of being witches. There’s more similarities but we’ll leave it there. Perhaps the growth of parallel witchy folklore cultures on opposite sides of the world might speak to the human imagination’s desire for the magical in everyday life?
Elizabeth: Thank you for joining us today. As always, we invite you to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tik Tok at dig_history, or join our Facebook group – Dig History Pod Squad. If you have a comment or question or want to share some kind words with us, you can always email us at hello@digpodcast.org – we love listener mail! If you’re an educator, we’ve got a compendium of episodes you can use in the classroom – and free teaching resources, including full lesson plans! – on our website, digpodcast.org. We realize that recent changes to curriculum in states like Florida and Texas will complicate being able to use our podcast episodes in the classroom, so please reach out if there’s something we can do to be helpful to you and your classroom. Make sure you pre-order our book, SPIRITUALISM’S PLACE, now! It comes out on October 15! You’ll also find full bibliographies, the scripts for all of our episodes, resources, and a link to our swag store at digpodcast.org.
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Bibliography
Foster, Michael Dylan. 2015.The Book of Yokai : Mysterious Creatures of Japanese Folklore. Oakland, California: University of California Press.
Hearn, Lafcadio. 1907.Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan : (First Series). Copyright ed. Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz.
Kang, Xiaofei. 2006.The Cult of the Fox : Power, Gender, and Popular Religion in Late Imperial and Modern China. New York: Columbia University Press.
Keikai, and Kyoko Motomochi Nakamura. 1997.Miraculous Stories from the Japanese Buddhist Tradition : The Nihon RyōIki of the Monk KyōKai. London: Routledge.
Mitford, A. B. “The Foxes’ Wedding.” Tales of Old Japan. Comp. and trans. Mitford. London: Macmillan, 1871. 225–27. Print.
Pressler, Sophia.Replicas of Social Change: Examining Reflections of Religious Shifts in Japanese Society Through Literary Depictions of Kitsune Characters. Illinois State University, 2022.
Sienkewicz, Thomas J., ed. 2013.Critical Survey of Mythology and Folklore : Love, Sexuality, and Desire. Ipswich, Mass.: Salem Press.
Skibyak, G. (2020).Kitsune: A Look into the Lasting Presence of the Fox Spirit in Japanese Culture(Order No. 28255974). Available from ProQuest One Academic. (2484694325)
Smyers, Karen Ann. 1999.The Fox and the Jewel : Shared and Private Meanings in Contemporary Japanese Inari Worship. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Notes
[1] Quoted in Kang, Xiaofei (2006). The cult of the fox: Power, gender, and popular religion in late imperial and modern China. New York: Columbia University Press, p. 17.
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