Lantern Tales of the East: Library

Fox Spirits of the Taiping Guangji · Chapter 1 of 83

On Foxes

说狐

Li Fang, chief compiler · 1 min read

A woman in a Tang-dynasty robe walks down a moonlit street in Chang'an; a fox tail shows beneath her hem, her shadow is a fox, a small fox sits before her, and a hunting dog watches from a distant hill
A fox spirit in human form on a night street in Chang'an. Modern illustration generated with AI.

When a fox is fifty years old, it can transform itself into a woman. At a hundred it becomes a beautiful woman, or a spirit medium, or else a grown man who lies with women. It can know what happens a thousand li1 away, is skilled in gu sorcery and bewitchment,2 and makes people lose their wits and their judgement. At a thousand years it communicates with Heaven and becomes a Heavenly Fox.3

From the Xuanzhong ji (玄中记, Records of the Mysterious Centre).

Notes

  1. Li (里): a traditional unit of distance, roughly half a kilometre. ↩
  2. Uncertain reading: the text has 盅魅; 盅 ("cup") is almost certainly a miswriting of 蛊 (gu), a poison-magic made from venomous creatures, and is translated as such. ↩
  3. Heavenly Fox: tianhu (天狐). ↩