The Animal Within > The Otherkin & Therians
The Fox Maiden
TeteoInan:
Silky-furred, bright-eyed, wily and sweetly mocking, the little kitsune - foxes - of Japan were both loved and feared by mortal. Some kitsune served the harvest god, and these were honored: At the god's shady roadside shrines and in his mighty temple compounds stood hosts of pretty foxes carved in stone and adorned with jeweled eyes. But most kitsune were evil beasts that could assume the shape of beautiful women and rob mortal men of vigor and goodness.
Among such malevolent kitsune, the most powerful and enduring was Tamamo no Mae. In her human guise, she was a courtesan so exquisite and skilled that she was called the Jewel Maiden. Her victims were kings and emperors.
Tamamo's origins were obscure. It was thought that, thousands of years before she arrived in Japan, she had been an Indian King's consort, appearing at times as a woman and at times as a white fox with nine tails. As either, she was heartless: Her chief pleasure was the slaughter of innocents. Eventually she was expelled from India.
Legend said that the fox-woman next appeared in China, in the harem of the Shang tyrant Chou Hsin. To satisfy her extravagant tastes, the besotted Emperor created vast pleasure gardens whose lakes were filled with wine and whose trees were hung with baskets of delicacies. Knowing that she would appreciate a fillip of humiliation, he commanded the ladies of his court to dance nude among the flowers of these gardens for her amusement. They refused. So Chou Hsin devised a better entertainment: He forced the women into a pit filed with vipers and bees. As Tamamo remarked in her soft voice, the ladies danced quite briskly then. They died in agony.
The dissipation of the Chinese court became so constant and egregious that the people at last revolted against the scandal. Tamamo was executed and her body burned. But from the ashes sprang a snowy fox. Swift as the wind, it made for Japan.
In the Court of the Rising Sun, Tamamo took woman's form again and seduced Toba, Emperor of Japan. He steadily weakened in her company. Finally, during a night of storms, he fell into a swoon, calling her name. At that, a nimbus of triumphant light played around Tamamo's head. The Emperor's counselors saw it and recognized what she must be. They exposed Tamamo's nature by holding a mirror before her face. The glass reflected not the countenance of a woman, but the white-furred muzzle of a fox.
By this, the evil magic was broken. The woman reverted to fox form and streaked away among the pavilions of the palace. For some days, the creature lingered near, killing small animals and birds when it could, until the people set their dogs on it.
The fox then fled, retreating to the sulfur-smoking moor of Nasu, in the central part of the island of Honshu, where the owls sang all night long in mournful chorus and the jackals whined on the wind. There, the kitsune dwindled to a stone, it was said, and lay solitary in sullen grandeur on the plain. Nothing that touched the stone or even approached it survived the experience. It cast a miasmas so venomous that insects and birds littered the ground nearby. Poets said only clouds could fly over Sessho-Seki, a name that meant the "Stone of Life Destruction."
ViciouslyMe:
That was a great read, do you mind me asking where you got it from?
TeteoInan:
Time-Life Books put out a series called The Enchanted World.
They're books I grew up on... I've shared a couple stories already in different sections.
This particular story is out of Night Creatures.
Nina:
I really enjoyed this. Nice find T ;)
TeteoInan:
Thank yas.
I thought it'd be nice to share. :-)
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