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Japanese fairy tales Kitsune One of the most common of all characters in Japanese fairy tales the kitsune is very often depicted as either benevolent or very mischievous. Unlike most other stories of animals which change from it’s rare to find a fairy tale where they kill someone or cause any real harm. This is likely because kitsune are the messengers of Inari who’s temples their statues guard. In this role a kitsune which had turned white helped to forge a sword which the Japanese general needed to defeat Korea in war. In other stories the fox will take on the form of a beautiful woman act as the wife of a human who aided them while they were in fox form. In one such story a monk saves a fox from some hunters but is injured in the process. Some time later the fox comes to him in the form of his fiancée, helps him out of the mountains and treats his wounds. They are soon married and they bare a son together. The kitsune only leaves him when his real fiancée comes from the distant city in which she lived. Not all kitsune wives are good however, the Emperor unknowingly had a kitsune courtesan who he fell deeply in love with. The emperor suddenly fell ill and finally when an astrologer was consulted about the illness he explained that the young women was actually an evil nine tailed kitsune as part of a plot to steal his throne. The Kitsune then fled the court and so the Emperor ordered his two greatest warriors to hunt her down and kill her. She manged to hunt them for some time before she appeared to one of them in a dream in the form of a beautiful woman to beg for her life. He however refused to spare her. The next day when he killed her, her body became a cursed stone which haunts the area around it and kills anyone who comes close to it. Foxes most often tend to use their powers to cause mischief or to bewitch humans . In one story a priest scares a sleeping fox. Angry the kitsune takes his form when he knows people are watching and then enters the temple so that they think the priest is really a fox who is trying to bewitch them. The people then attack the priest and tie him up and begin pulling on his ears. They put him on a spit over the fire until he passed out from the smoke at which point they realized their mistake as he hadn’t transformed and so they released him. In another story a kitsune is causing mischief in a village and a man brags that it wouldn’t be able to trick him. Then one day while he’s out he sees the fox transform into a human and go into a house. Thinking that the fox is playing a trick on the people of the home the man runs over and opens the door to yell a warning to them except what he thought was a home was really an illusion and so he finds himself holding a horses tail while yelling a warning into the animals butt. In another story a fox repays a mans kindness by turning into a fine horse which he then sells. The kitsume returns to him and turns into a tea kettle which he also sold for money. Each kitsune has a glowing jewel which holds its soul and magical powers. Kitsune have also been said to use magic to cause the guns of hunters to fill with dirt.