Fox spirit
From Free net encyclopedia
Fox spirits (狐狸精 hǔlijīng) in Chinese mythology are spirits of a fox type that are akin to European faeries, demons, or to the Japanese yōkai known as kitsune (Kumiho in Korean mythology). They can be either good spirits or bad spirits.
In Chinese and Japanese mythologies, it is believed that all things are capable of acquiring human forms, magical powers, and immortality provided that they received certain energy, such as human breaths or essence from the moon and the sun.
The fox spirits that people encounter in tales and legends tend to be females and appear as young, beautiful women. One of the most infamous fox spirits in Chinese mythology was Daji (妲己), who is portrayed in the Ming novel Fengshen Yanyi a beautiful daughter of a general; she was married forcibly to the cruel tyrant Zhou Xin (紂辛 Zhòu Xīn). A nine-tailed fox spirit who served Nüwa (whom Zhou Xin had offended) entered into and possessed her body, expelling the "true" Daji's soul. 'Daji' and her new husband schemed cruelly and invented many devices of torture, such as forcing righteous officials to hug red-hot metal pillars (see text an image on Paoluo torture invented by Daji). Due to such cruelties, many people, including Zhou Xin's own former generals, revolted and fought against Zhou Xin's dynasty, Shang. Finally, King Wen of Zhou, one of the vassals of Shang, founded a new dynasty named after his country. The fox spirit in Daji's body was later driven out by Jiang Ziya (姜子牙), the first Prime Minister of the Zhou Dynasty.
Typically fox spirits were seen as dangerous, but some of the stories in Pu Songling's Liaozhai Zhiyi are love stories between a fox appearing as a beautiful girl and a young human male.
In modern Mandarin slang, the term "fox spirit" (狐狸精 hǔlijīng) is a derogatory expression describing a woman who seduces a man.
The fox spirit has also been used as an explanatory factor in the incidence of attacks of Koro, a culture bound syndrome found in Southern China and Malaysia in particular (See Cheng, S. T. (1996) A critical review of Chinese Koro. In Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 20(1):67-82)
See also
External links
- Fox Spirits in Asia - "largest bibliography of fox-spirit material on the web."
- Gods of Japan page on the fox spirit