Sky Fox (mythology)

Lore & Background

The mythology of multi-tailed foxes originates from the beliefs of Ancient China. A collection of stories from the Jin dynasty known as Xuanzhongji records that when a fox reaches the age of fifty, it can transform into a woman; at a hundred years old, it becomes a beauty or female shaman who knows affairs a thousand li away; at a thousand years, the fox connects with the Sky and is transformed into the Sky Fox. According to legend, there are three ways for a fox to gain wisdom: swallowing treasures, cultivating spiritual virtues by absorbing the essence of the moon, or following a Taoist master. Every 100 years a catastrophe occurs; if the fox survives, it grows a new tail. Many foxes die during the three-to-five-tail period. When the fox reaches 1,000 years, it becomes the Thousand-Year Heavenly Fox and obtains the Immortal Rank.

The stories of the Sky Fox are recorded in the Taiping Guangji, which contains numerous accounts of these beings, but the earliest known record is in the Xuanzhongji from the Jin dynasty. Notably, the Sky Foxes documented in Taiping Guangji are all male, though later records include female celestial foxes. In Taiping Guangji, Sky Foxes often cause trouble in the human world and are subdued by Taoist priests, but due to their status as celestial emissaries, they are spared execution and instead beaten or exiled. One such Sky Fox, Liu Cheng, was banished to the ancient Korean kingdom of Silla, where the people came to revere and worship it as a deity. This tale is later cited in the Korean poetry collection Heeamjip.

Reader's Guide

The Sky Fox holds a significant place in East Asian mythology as the apex of fox spirit evolution, representing the culmination of a thousand years of cultivation. Its characteristics—nine tails and golden fur—were later assimilated into depictions of the female fox spirit Daji and prominently reflected in Japanese ukiyo-e art. In Japan during the Edo period, tenko were considered the highest rank of foxes, and some essays proposed that tenko and tengu are the same creature. The Korean kumiho from the Joseon-era novel Jeon Woo-chi shares the Sky Fox's nine tails, golden fur, and signature item called the Cheonseo ("sky book"), though the novel subverts the traditional narrative by having the protagonist successfully steal the Cheonseo. At Fushimi Inari-taisha, a male fox named Osugi is worshipped as Suehiro Daijin, though these foxes are always divine messengers of Inari Ōkami, not the deity itself. In Ojika, Nagasaki, tenko is a type of spirit possession said to grant correct divination abilities.

Did You Know?

• The Sky Fox is first recorded in the Xuanzhongji from the Jin dynasty, predating the Taiping Guangji.
• A Sky Fox can see approximately 500 km (a thousand li) ahead.
• One Sky Fox named Liu Cheng was banished to the ancient Korean kingdom of Silla and later worshipped as a deity.