Regardless of where you’re from each country assigned certain qualities to certain animals the wise owl the brave bear and more relevant to today’s article the crafty and intelligent Fox the Japanese word for Fox is of course kitsune and finally the patrons have decided that it will be this week’s article of choice when I use the term kitsune it’s likely many of you will think of a nine tailed fox but in Japanese folklore all foxes depicted as been very intelligent beings with the power to transform and shape-shift into a human in ancient Japan the foxes were closely linked to in early the Shinto deity of fertility rice and agriculture due to their association of Inari foxes and humans live closely together no one really knows why the foxes were in our days animal of choice but because of this the stories of the kitsune arose as a way to explain the animal supernatural significance the kitsune was someone of whom expect in some tales there were the friends and faithful guardians of humans even stretching as far as the lovers and wives of Sun then Nura tales of the kids who know where they are cunning tricksters using their power to trick humans and even sometimes other kids in a if the idea of nine-tailed Fox’s is one that is often associated with the kitsune but not all of them had nine tails in fact the more tails.
Their kids in they had the older wiser and more powerful they were thought to be so we can assume that grown additional talents is something that may have happened over time those that did possess nine tails were considered to have the same power as a Shinto God and so many people would make sacrifices to them as if they were a regular deity the most common number of tails of the kids may appear to have is one five seven and nine when a kitsune does eventually gain its ninth tail its fur becomes white or gold and they gained tremendous sight and hearing being able to see in here almost anything so how long does it take for the kid’s name to gain tail number nine there are several accounts of this process but the most common being that after they become a thousand years old the kids today then gains a ninth tail it then becomes a golden celestial Fox in a sense of the heavens now this wouldn’t be article about a Japanese yokai without mentioning its origins and Chinese mythology in Chinese folk tales there are stories of Fox spirits called hua Jing these foxes also had numerous tails but the exact number isn’t very clear the kitsune as we know it today seems to be an adaptation of Chinese Indian and already exists in Japanese influences though the idea of the Fox as a seductress seems to be an idea unique to Japan between 1603 and 1867 the Edo period of Japan there was a fair amount of superstition surrounding foxes much like all of the animals that were associated as witches familiars such as black cats Badgers and of course foxes.
Kitsune – The Fox Spirit From Japanese Folklore
They were then labeled as a witch animal these foxes were also called goblin foxes and as you can imagine they were not the friendly foxes that we discussed earlier goblin foxes were attributed with strange occurrences in the household the change in weather in the possession of humans returned kitsune etske translates to mean the state of being possessed by a fox they would often choose young women and they would enter from beneath the fingernails while being possessed sometimes the victims facial expressions would change to resemble that of a fox and they would have a sudden craving for sweet things so how does one deal with one of these Fox positions well originally it was thought you could force the Fox to leave its host by badly beaten and burning the victim but as you can imagine this wasn’t the best idea and it led to many individuals and entire families being ostracized Arthur family members thought to have been possessed in the years that followed it became common practice to perform an exorcism at one of the shrines of Inari one could assume that the presence of in Lodi may have caused the Foxes to leave out of respect or even fear as weird as the Fox possessing someone may sound it did have very real effects and the Japanese property prices buying a property from someone who owned the Fox came of a negative stigma the association of dangerous and dark practices even when these prices were slashed wires are still hard to come by so we know that the kitsune are a type of youkai but there were two common types of kitsune li Zheng Qi which meant the good foxes these are the benevolent celestial foxes associated with deity Inari they were also called the Inari foxes the second kind where they are Co whose name and filled foxes but they’re also commonly known as nogitsune.
These Kitson a were mischievous and always looking for trouble their intentions were sometimes out of a trickster to provoke and get a rise but at times they were far more malicious although it’s stated that the kitsune can take the form of a human it’s not an ability they’re born with once they reach a certain age which ranges anywhere between 50 to 100 years old they then learn how to become a human in medieval Japan it was a common belief that foxes would impersonate beautiful women if one was to encounter a beautiful woman especially alone in a dark it was most commonly a kid Sanae up to no good the only way to know for sure was to look for a tail as the kids they were known to have troubles concealing their tails in human form another way to identify kids may in human form would be through their hatred for dogs so if your girlfriend seems to be particularly rattled by a puppy then it’s time to run she’s definitely a kitsune or maybe she’s just allergic to household pets either way I guess it’s best to refer back to method 1 and find a tail I’m sure many of you are aware that one of the kids and his many supernatural abilities is to generate lightning but they were also capable of generating fire some of you I’m sure will no the Pokemon nine tails and nine tailed fox that was a fire-type Pokemon yet another one of the many mythological influences found throughout the franchise the kids nose abilities are honestly quite endless it’s believed that they could fly and turn invisible whenever they needed to they could also create extremely powerful illusions and ability that any good trickster would need the kids they could create these illusions in person or in one stream they often appeared so convincing that individuals had problems distinguishing between what was an illusion and what was reality there are many tales of the kitsune appearing at someone’s door as a woman in distress after they have been taken in by the locals.
The next morning they would find much of their food and valuables had been stolen they would often add insult to injury by cutting or shaving the hair of those who had shown them kindness so far most of this behavior is in line of the tricks of persona but as we’ve already mentioned there were kids today whose intentions were cruel and evil they would use their illusions to lure victims to places where they had caused them harm and potentially kill them the tricks that gets enabled preferably target greedy merchants boastful commoners and overly proud samurai people they essentially believed had it coming the malicious kids and they prefer to target poorer villages and commonly Buddhist monks with the majority of them being men women of course would instead be possessed there’s a very particular game that kids named joy to play with humans they came across the game itself was called Fox fist and there’s a game very similar to rock-paper-scissors the symbols were replaced by hand positions that signify a fox a hunter and a village headman the village headman beats the hunter because he outranks him the hunter beats the Fox because he shoots him and the Fox beats the village headman because he bewitches him there isn’t much said as to what happens if the human order kids never victorious so we can assume that this game may have been nothing more than a bit of harmless fun I don’t really know how to coherently sum up the kid’s name one phrase or sentence so to me the kids nay are a mixed bag they come in different shapes sizes and colors some are good some are mischievous and some of course evil tickets tonight almost feels like you’re flipping a coin you may end up getting married to a fox tailed woman or you may not be murdered by the exact same fox old woman I’m sure all of you guys will be posting animes and mangas that they featuring that I’ve never heard of so feel free to share any thoughts or knowledge you have on the kids stay with me in the comments below.
