Anyone who has seen a statue of the white fox that acts as the messanger of the god Inari. According to Sino-Japanese Legends, the kitsune (fox) is a creature of ying. In order to become a complete "celestial fox" and fly off to heaven, it needs to acquire a yang element. It is this thirt for yang that lies behind the central mythologem of folktales about the kitsune...
The story of the kitsune is one where it tranforms itself into a beautiful young woman in order to seduce a young man. The Shoujo Kitsune (Fox-Maiden) typically meets her "prey" in some obscure place, perhaps on a county road at dusk, and takes him to some wonderful, faraway place where they marry, have children, and live together in rapture(happiness).
Later the Shoujo Kitsune assumes her true vulpine (fox) shape and disappears. The young gentleman, left alone, awakens from the kitsune's spell, only to find himself eating rotten leaves or going about on all fours like an animal. Sometimes he awakens in an open grave, or finds himself sitting in a cemetery, his wife, children, wealth, and places all a mirage.
Exposed to the laughter and ridicule of his neighbors, he finally dies from shame and disgrace from the loss of his yang, which was all the kitsune wanted from him in the first place. |
