Kitsune are amongst the most famous yokai in Japanese mythology, often being found in media like animae, video games, manga, etc. Notorious for their shapeshifting abilities and powers of manipulation, the kistune is one of the perfect creatures in mythology to talk about this spooky season.
#1: What is a Kitsune?
Dedicated to the god of foxes, fertility, rice, tea,sake, agriculture and industry, Inari Okami, kitsune are foxes in Japanese mythology that have supernatural abilites that are very similar to the tanuki’s (for information of tanuki, read my blog post on tanuki here: Mythology: The Mighty Tanuki). However, while tanuki are often shown as being benevolent spirits who bring wealth and happiness, the kitsune is generally considered to be an evil spirit. While in some myths, the kitsune is a trickster who doesn’t play any super evil pranks and is even sometimes considered a faithful guardian, friend, and lover, in many other tales, the kitsune is pure evil.
#2: What are their powers?
Like the tanuki, kitsune are proficient shape-shifters, being able to take the form of humans, monsters, giants, etc. sometimes to help people or to serve their own nefarious purposes. Kitsune are also highly intelligent and can cause phantom sounds and sights to confuse their enemies, possess humans (which has caused some mental disorders to be attributed to these spirits), and cause a phenomenon called “fox-fire”, in which strange lights appear in the sky. Very powerful kitsune have all nine tails, indicating that they have lived for a very long time (900 years, in fact), while less powerful ones will have fewer tails.
#3: What are the different types of kitsune?
There are two basic types of kitsune: Zenko and Yako (Holy and Wild).
Holy Kitsune are servants of Inari Okami and often act as messengers of the gods and mediums between the spirit world and the human world, providing services and wisdom to pious humans. They protect people and places, provide good fortune and ward off oni (evil spirits). In some tales, they have been sent to punish priests, greedy merchants, and drunks by stealing from them, making them go insane, or humiliating them in some other way. You can usually tell if a fox is a Holy/Celestial fox by its white or gold fur and nine tails. Basically, if a tanuki went to an AA program and managed to level up by a thousand points, it would become a Holy Kitsune.
On the other hand, you get the more common variation of kitsune; the Wild Kitsune. Unlike their celestial relatives, Wild Kitsune are often evil tricksters. While not all of them are pure evil, many are and they are the ones who are most likely to possess or kill humans.
#4: How do you find a kitsune?
The best way to find a kitsune is by getting it drunk, though this only works if it’s in human form. If it gets drunk, either it’s eyes will look like a fox’s, it will have a tail or ears, or sprout some other fox-like apendage.
Another way of figuring out if you have a kitsune on your hands is by introducing a dog to the picture. Kitsune hate dogs and have a strong fear of them. If they see that you have a dog, they are very likely to revert to their fox form and run away.
#5: Famous Kitsune: Tamamo-no-Mae
Legend tells that Tamamo-no-Mae was one of the most powerful yokai ever to live. Bearing nine tails and having an insatiable lust for power, she caused one of the most importatn civil wars in Japan’s history and is part of the traid known as the Nihon San Dai Aku Yokai, “The Three Terrible Yokai of Japan”.
Born in China over 3000 years ago, Tamamo’s early life is a mystery, but she was said to be surpassingly beautiful and was as powerful as the Holy foxes, signified by her nine tails and golden-white fur. However, while she could’ve had a happy life as a sorceress working for Inari, she decided to take the worst route possible and act like one of the Wild Foxes and try to get as much power as she wanted, no matter the cost.
Thus, her first victim was King Zhou, a ruler of the Shang Dynasty. Disguised a concubine called Daji, Tamamo-no-Mae quickly became the model of human depravity, holding orgies in the palace gardens, decorating the palace with very graphic scenes of torture. In fact, her love of inventing and watching people be tortured were legendary and she eventually brought the entire Shang dynasty to its knees.
After knocking the Shang Dynasty off of her list of places to ruin, in order to escape execution, Tamamo-no-Mae decided that India would be her next destination. Disguising herself once again as a beautiful woman, she called herself Lady Kayo and seduced King Kalmashapada of the Magadha kingdom itno letting her become a consort. As his consort, she further influenced him to do things like eat children, murder priests, bring a Harry Styles concert to the palace, and other unspeakable things.
Finally, after several years of having fun bringing chaos to the kingdom, Tamamo-no-Mae turned her sights towards China’s brand new Zhou Dynasty and decided to take her chances there again. Besides, Kalmashapada had turned to that new thing called Buddhism a while back and had stopped listening to her.
As with the Shang Dynasty and Magadha, Tamamo-no-Mae came into the Zhou Dynasty as a concubine (this time called Bao Si) that the King was happy to have. And just like with the other two guys, she got him to commit horrible acts of depravity, including disposing of his wife so she could marry him and become queen. Unfortunately for her, however, the kings nobles quickly got tired of her influence over the King and decided they both need to go. While they were successful in killing the king and capturing her, she escaped again and disappeared, never to be heard from again….
Just kidding!
She popped up again sometime in the late 700’s BCE, this time as a 16-year-old girl named Wakamo. She had managed to trick her way onto a ship bound to Japan where she laid low for another 300 years until the 1090’s where she changed into a baby hidden on the side of the road, where a lucky couple found her and raised her, giving her the name Mikuzume. At seven years old (human growth time, not fox time), she performed for the emperor and was employed in his court.
The years passed and she grew up there, becoming the emperor’s favorite until a fateful day when she turned eighteen and the emperor made her his consort. She started glowing and while everyone at the time thought this was a good sign, the emperor fell deathly ill soon after. Unable to determine the cause of his illness, the physicians called in Abe-no-Yasunari – the court onmyoji – to figure out what was happening.
What Yasunari found was that the emperor had been marked by a bad omen and had all the high priests pray for him, but it had no effect and the emperor grew worse. Confused, he tried a second time and was shocked to hear that (surprise, surprise), Tamamo-no-Mae was the cause of the emperor’s sickness so that she could take over as the ruler of Japan. Thus, he prepared the Taizan-Fukun-no-Sae, the most powerful spell known to anyone in his profession. He invited Tamamo to partake in it, knowing that for such a holy ritual to be performed, any evil spirit in the vicitinity would be expelled by it.
Though she was reluctant to partake in it, Tamamo-no-Mae finally caved to the pressure put on her to be part of the spell and so she dressed herself up as much as possible and went in. She played her part beautiully, but by the time that Yasunari waved his magic wand, she vanished, confirming that she was a fox-spirit and was guilty.
Soon after, women and children started going missing and the emperor amassed an army of 80,000 of the best warriors in the land to defeat her. The most notable of the warriors was Kazusanosuke and Miuranosuke, who were charged with finding Tamamo. They searched for days and each time they found her, she quickly and easily escaped. Unwilling to go back in dishonor, the warriors kept on searching until one night Miuranosuke had a dream in which a girl begged him not to kill her. He refused to listen and the next day, the warriors caught Tamamo-no-Mae and killed her by shooting two arrows into her neck and flank and cutting off her head.
After Tamamo’s life was ended, there was peace for a little while, but the next two emperors in the line of the one whom she had cursed died heirless very soon after her death, causing a succession crisis that lead to the Genpai War.
While the war has long since ended, Tamamo-no-Mae’s soul is still trapped under a large boulder called “The Killing Stone”, which is said to kill anything that touches it.
Until next time,
M.J.
The Tanuki Corner 
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