Andre’s Reviews > Myths and Legends from Korea: An Annotated Compendium of Ancient and Modern Materials > Status Update

Oh, that was the last story

So in this story here the baby is a fox. Odd when the mother was a fox the baby was human but when the father is a fox the baby is a fox. And the author compares this story to the ms fox story by the brother's grimm, so does that mean the male fox here is an actual nine-tail?

I am so not surprised that the powerful fake mountain spirit was a large and ancient fox.

I am not surprised that the turtle with the three tails turned out to be the dragon king of the sea. I vaguely remember that story.

This empress of China was a fox who "had escaped from the tree the previous year"? What tree? The story didn't mention any tree. And odd that the fox did not transform her paws into hands and so the younger brother could recognize her as a fox. Usually the tale is not transformed.

in this story, the fox is stated to have one tail. I noticed that so far the only number of tails given for these foxes, if any, was one tail. And while there are some outliers (why isn't the story of the black buddhist fox not here?) mostly the foxes here are female seductresses or man-eating monsters (so far mostly men). There is one of a great man being the offspring of a fox woman though.

so several man-eating foxes now, starting with a woman and later men, and they basically run across a tiger and the tiger kills all of them. And the tiger dies of exhaustion. So the foxes must have some strength, since they are not stated to have weapons.

so this fox sister was the spirit of a fox and not a fox herself? I doubt that there is a translation issue here because so far none of the foxes or other animals transforming into humans were considered spirits. So maybe this is some spirit of a fox being reborn into a human family (like some snake in another Korean tale) and therefore the girl can take on the form of a fox.

Fox stories... hm, I admit I would have expected them to come before the bear stories considered the popularity of nine-tailed foxes today.

I remember the tale of the bear and wild boar changing into humans and rescuing the villagers. I just don't remember that they could transform into tortoises as well. And it is unusual that an animal in such stories can change into humans and other species.