Kitsune (and, incidentally, Old Man Coyote)

This entry was delayed because I thought it would be interesting to explore a popular shapeshifter whose lore has become twisted and changed by modern subcultures: the Japanese kitsune. However, what I discovered in my research was oftentimes contradicting, and in the end it proved very difficult to get down into the most traditional of stories and accounts without finding ones that had been altered by modern ideas. This was troublesome, and I slept on it.

Earlier this morning, I found a website that accomplishes pretty fairly what I'd had an idea to do in this entry. Watts Martin's article "Coyote of the Orient" does a fantastic job analyzing the kitsune (shapeshifting foxes) mythologies and how they compare to Native American stories about Old Man Coyote, who is a fellow shapeshifter of good, evil, neutral, self-serving, beneficial, malevolent, sexual, amoral, moral, and generally chaotic nature. The article may be found at this link.

I highly reccommend reading through it thoroughly. Martin makes the connection between the fox and the femme fatale character, showing how kitsune myths reflect this. He discusses the "Konjaku Monogatari, a 31-volume collection of narratives written in the 11th century," which is the source for most traditional kitsune stories that remain in existance today. Interestingly, the collection was authored by Takakuni, a Buddhist, at a time when Buddhism had entered Japan and the ideas of karma and samsara were being integrated into society. The kitsune characters in his stories became figures much like Coyote: they were used as negative lessons, as figures NOT to emulate.

Cleverness used in a negative fashion is a common trend in kitsune stories. Martin quotes Kiyoshi Nozaki, who writes:

"Kitsune, as you will read in such a book as the Konjaku Monogatari, is an animal wanton by nature. It is supposed to satisfy its desire by having relations with men through the art of bewitchery. Apart from the question of the possibility of this, you will notice, in the fox tradition, that kitsune is making use of its superior brains in various ways in bewitching men. This is the time-honored tradition of Japan in regard to the bewitchery of kitsune."

The kitsune legends are yet another example in which the human-shifted creature is described as having an alluring beauty. Their shifting ritual generally involves the donning of a skull and praying until they become human, but the reversion to fox seems to be instantaneous. Lesser-seen abilities of the kitsune include possession (similar to demonic possessions in Western cultures) and fox-lights, or will-o-wisps. The idea of foxes being connected to fire (an element of passion and hypnotic power) is not terribly unusual.

In some kitsune stories they are connected with Inari, the rice god. They seem to serve as messengers or guardians of the shrine to Inari, and are usually depcited as white foxes in these cases. Foxes that do not serve Inari are generally referred to as "wild foxes," or nogitsune.

At the end of his article, Martin provides a bibliography with some further reading suggestions. In short, he's done the work for me. Have a look at the full contents of his article; you won't be disappointed.

Selkie (and Finfolk)

It seems only fitting that my first examination in this blog be on one of my personal favorite shapeshifter breed: the selkie.

The selkie hails originally from northern Scotland - specifically, the Orkney Islands. These islands are rich in Pictish and Scandinavian history, and the myths and placenames as they are today speak much to Norse influence on the culture. As people on an island chain, the sea is a major central focus in the history of the Orcadians. Not only does it serve as benefactor for their survival, but it also serves as the ultimate nemesis.

This battle between man and nature is reflected in selkie lore. In a nutshell, the selkie is typically depicted as hauntingly beautiful, black-haired female. She shifts between human and seal by the shedding and donning of her seal-skin, and mythology shows that the bearer of a selkie's seal-skin holds that selkie at his or her command. One legend tells of a man who fell deeply in love with a selkie, and when he found her sunning herself on the rocks one day in human form he snuck up and stole away with her seal-skin. He forced her to become his wife and they lived together for years, until her mournful state finally persuaded him to return her skin to her. She put it on and returned joyously to the sea as a seal once more; and, when the man was in peril later in his boat, a familiar seal arrived to pull him to safety.

Interestingly, the Orcadians also talk of the finfolk, who may be cited as the original inspiration for mermaid mythology. Young fin-women are described as being alluringly beautiful and irrisistable to young sailors and fishermen, with or without the fishtail appendage. A fin-woman must attract a human husband in order to retain her eternal beauty; if she does not, and is forced instead to marry a fin-man, then she will age into a wretched hag-like creature known as the fin-wife. The fin-man, generally depicted in lore as a ferry-man or a sorceror, is said to have extraordinary magical abilities over the sea and the air. Any man who finds himself in a fin-man's boat has little chance of seeing his family and friends again, as he is either drowned or kidnapped to Eynhallow, the sacred home of the finfolk.

These two creatures - finfolk and selkie - were given as answers in folklore for a man who is lost at sea. Rather than say that he must have died and thus remove all hope of ever seeing the individual again, his ending was given a more substantial reason: he was taken by the fin-man, or lured away by the fin-woman. Similarly, if a man proved to be unfaithful to his wife, he was said to have become bewitched by a selkie. Where the finfolk embodied the cruel, unforgiving aspects of the sea, the selkie were typically shown to be the softer, gentler side of nature.

Full transcripts of legends told by Orcadians about the selkie and the finfolk can normally be found at http://www.orkneyjar.com/, when the site's bandwidth is not exceeded. I shall do my best to post an update here when the site is back up and running again.