Fox-possession and fox-familiars are common beliefs among the Japanese; women, weak men, and even children…
- Date of account
- Published 1915
- Source
- Human Animals
- Reference
- Human Animals · selected passage 93
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
Fox-possession and fox-familiars are common beliefs among the Japanese; women, weak men, and even children suffering from the idea of having been transformed into animals
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyFox-possession and fox-familiars are common beliefs among the Japanese; women, weak men, and even children suffering from the idea of having been transformed into animals. They are cured by being made to snuff up smoke from a heap of burning refuse, or by drinking weak tea, or swallowing roasted leaves of a certain plant; all these things being detested by foxes, and incidentally no doubt useful in cases of ordinary hysteria. Foxes which take the form of men and women soon resume vulpine shape when fumigated, bathed, or attacked by dogs. Even in the present day, fox-possession has as great a hold on the imagination as in earlier centuries, but it is more widely ascribed to human sorcery. Certain sacred temples in Japan still attract crowds of pilgrims who believe that they are possessed by foxes and who come to these holy places to be cured.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.
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