Fox fairy

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Nine-tailed fox; from the Qing edition of Shan Hai Jing

The fox fairy ( Chinese  狐狸精 , Pinyin hǔlijīng ) or fox spirit is a being from Chinese mythology .

Fox fairies are the spirits of foxes that are related to the Japanese kitsune and the Korean kumiho . They can be both good and bad in nature.

In Chinese and Japanese mythology it is commonly assumed that all things are capable of assuming human forms, possessing magical powers, or attaining immortality , provided that these things have absorbed the necessary energy. These energies include, for example, the human breath or the essence of the moon or the sun.

The fox spirits that people encounter in sagas and legends are mostly young and beautiful women. One of the most famous fox spirits in Chinese mythology was Daji , the bewitching daughter of a general. She was compelled to marry a cruel tyrant. A nine-tailed fox spirit took hold of her soul, and she adapted to the cruelty of her unpopular husband, after which the couple started a long dynasty of brutality and totalitarian power. The fox spirit that made the girl a fox fairy was later driven out of her.

Many such stories about fox spirits, which mostly amount to a love affair between a fox fairy and a young man, can be found in collections of fairy tales and legends. In such stories, foxes are depicted as beings with human emotions who, even in the form of a woman, can marry a man and give birth to children. Many of these stories were written by Chinese scholars and some sinologists interpret these stories as compensation for the erotic frustrating everyday life of the scholars.

A woman who lured the husband from the side of his wife was often referred to as a fox fairy, which in this case was meant rather derogatory and can be compared with the European word vamp .

literature

  • Xiaofei Kang: The cult of the fox. Power, gender, and popular religion in Late Imperial and Modern China , New York, NY 2006, ISBN 0-231-50822-0
  • Klaus Mailahn: The fox in faith and myth , Münster 2006, ISBN 3-8258-9483-5
  • Ylva Monschein: The magic of the fox fairy. Origin and change of a “femme fatale” motif in Chinese literature , 1988 ff., ISBN 3-89228-204-8
  • Karen A. Smyers: The Fox and the Jewel. Shared and private meanings in contemporary Japanese Inari worship , Honolulu 1999, ISBN 0-8248-2102-5

Web links