Welcome to my Fox shrine.
This is a space for me to talk about my spiritual love of foxes, their magic and lore.


Inari is an interesting and complex deity from the Shinto religion most known in the west for her association with foxes. Inari is a deity of many things, though agriculture (rice) is the most important. There are many Inari shrines in Japan, Inari is one of Japan's most beloved Kami (God/Spirit).
From 'Mythopedia': Because Inari became prominent in pre-modern Japan when beliefs weren't uniform, worshipers came to view the deity differently in different contexts. This helps explain why people have viewed Inari variously as male, female, and androgynous. Similarly, Inari's vast identity has allowed people of different faiths and practices to embrace the deity, including Buddhists, who connected Inari with different sects and bodhisattva. For example, in Shingon Buddhism, the concept of the divine feminine, daikiniten, is connected to the power of foxes and thus to Inari, giving her additional powers from Buddhism, such as purifying light, she lacks in traditional Shinto depictions.

_{Fox statues at Inari shrines}


All foxes can shapeshift into humans in Japanese folklore, and they can form lasting bonds of love and friendship with humans. The more tails a kitsune has, the older and more powerful it is (A nine-tailed fox being the oldest and most powerful.) I believe a fox gains a tail for every 100 years of life.
"According to Hiroshi Moriyama, a professor at the Tokyo University of Agriculture, foxes have come to be regarded as sacred by the Japanese because they are the natural enemies of rats that eat up rice or burrow into rice paddies."
Aside from magic and superior intelligence, foxes are said to be able to possess women, this is called "Kitsunetsuki", from "Glimpses of unfamiliar Japan":
"Strange is the madness of those into whom demon foxes enter. Sometimes they run naked shouting through the streets. Sometimes they lie down and froth at the mouth, and yelp as a fox yelps. And on some part of the body of the possessed a moving lump appears under the skin, which seems to have a life of its own. Prick it with a needle, and it glides instantly to another place. By no grasp can it be so tightly compressed by a strong hand that it will not slip from under the fingers. Possessed folk are also said to speak and write languages of which they were totally ignorant prior to possession. They eat only what foxes are believed to like - tofu, aburage, azukimeshi, etc. - and they eat a great deal, alleging that not they, but the possessing foxes, are hungry."
Kitsune to me are a lot like many faerie creatures in many different cultures. They can be mischevious tricksters, but are often devoted companions and protectors who use their magic to help humans, I really love them and I hope more people will appreciate foxes not just as very cute and fluffy friends but as potentionally powerful spirits.
They can vanish in some stories and heal human ailnments in others. A fox in human form whom decides to marry a human typically remains a devoted and loving partner, though it seems that sometimes human/kitsune partnership winds up very similarly to human/faerie relationships, with the human eventually "waking up" alone and dishelved. Kitsune is both spirit and coporeal, sometimes wicked and hurtful and sometimes very helpful and kind. I am very comfortable calling kitsune a type of faerie, and I think that all faeries all over the world are part of one thing or they all share a common thread or the various otherworlds they all come from, is one and the same.

There are also many legends and stories regarding foxes in European folklore.