With so much going wrong in the world, should we also be concerned about a nine-tailed fox demon that can run loose in a forest in Japan?
The answer partly depends on your reading of ancient Japanese mythology.
This month, a volcanic rock split in two in Nikko National Park, about 100 miles north of Tokyo. Intact, the rock was about six feet long and 26 feet in circumference, according to a guide at the park. It has long been associated with a Japanese legend in which an evil fox spirit haunts a “killing stone” or Sessho-seki in Japanese, making it deadly to humans. Some people have speculated that the fracture released the fox to cause further damage.
Others have focused on a variation of the legend that ends on a happier note. In that narration, after a Zen monk splits the rock into several pieces and coaxes the fox, she vows never to harm people again.
Social media has numerous theories about what breaking the rock means to mere mortals. So do the Japanese news media. “Is this a pre-warning of disaster or a good omen?” asked a recent article in The Asahi Shimbun, an influential newspaper.
Increased interest in the broken stone may be a sign of our times, said Nick Kapur, a professor of Japanese history at Rutgers University who wrote a popular article. Twitter thread about this in early March.
“There’s a kind of millennial feeling in the air, an apocalyptic feeling, with the coronavirus and this war in Ukraine,” he said in an interview. “People feel, ‘Ah, why is all this happening now?’ And so maybe this rock bursting open at this particular moment hits a nerve.”
‘A kind of anti-hero’
The legend of the nine-tailed fox is set in the 12th century at the royal court in Kyoto, the imperial capital of Japan. Scholars say it first appeared in written texts in the 15th century.
In the basic version, a retired emperor, Toba, a real historical figure, is enchanted by a beautiful and intelligent visitor, Tamamo no Mae. When Toba becomes fatally ill, a royal astrologer discovers that the visitor is an angry fox in disguise. She flees into the wilderness, and warriors sent through the palace shoot her with arrows, turning her into a poisonous rock.
In real life, Toba’s death triggered a succession crisis that led to an era of samurai fighting and military rule. “In all likelihood, the story of Tamamo no Mae emerged from the real world of palace politics,” wrote scholar Janet Goff in a 1997 essay on foxes in Japanese culture.
In another version of the legend — one that appeared in ancient plays and illustrated scrolls — a Zen monk is walking past the stone when a woman warns him not to approach it. She says it will kill any human, bird, or animal that does.
The woman admits that she is the ghost of the stone and disappears into it. After the monk smashes and breaks the stone with a staff, it reappears, vows never to harm people again, and disappears for good.
For centuries, telling the fox legend echoed a misogynistic trope of Japanese mythology in which female characters were held responsible for the downfall of dynasties, Professor Kapur said. But when the nine-tailed fox has appeared in modern Japanese cultural products — including anime, manga, and even video games — she’s usually portrayed more favorably.
“There’s still a hint of evil, but she might be some sort of anti-hero,” he said. “It’s interesting how this character has transformed from an unredeemed villain to almost someone you would admire or be friends with.”
‘A scary place’
The rock that broke apart in Nikko National Park was in a forest strewn with sulphurous hot springs. Park rangers had been photographing cracks in the stone for years, and local officials said the eventual fracture was caused by the ingress of poisonous gas and rainwater.
“The stone is a government-designated cultural asset, so we can’t decide for ourselves what to do,” said Riko Kitahara, a park official. “But from a maintenance standpoint, we think it should be left as it is because it naturally splits.”
The Nikko Stone was designated a Cultural Property by the Tochigi Prefecture in 1957 and a scenic spot by the national government in 2014. It is said to be one of several stones created by the Zen monk when he broke apart the larger boulder during his mythical encounter with the chastened fox spirit.
The government says the 17th-century poet Matsuo Basho referred to the stone when he wrote of visiting a stone that emitted poisonous fumes and was surrounded by soil “covered with so many dead bees and butterflies that you can barely tell the color of the sand.” see. “
Masaharu Sugawara, 83, a volunteer guide in Nikko National Park, said the poet’s reference to the stone has long been a selling point for tourists. He added that animals that are attracted to hot springs near the stone in winter sometimes die from poisonous gases.
“As Matsuo Basho wrote, it’s a scary place,” he said.
A fox for our time?
It brings bad luck in Japan to talk about bad luck, so if people are afraid that breaking the stone will cause bad vibes, maybe they don’t tell reporters.
Publicly, at least, many have said they believe breaking the stone is a good sign, not an omen of impending doom. Some have even expressed hope that it could be just what the world needs at this chaotic moment in history.
In a recent Facebook post, a tourism organization in the Nikko area said it hoped the rock breaking was an “auspicious omen” and that the nine-tailed fox might “tame the coronavirus and the current world situation”.
Masaki Akutsu, an official in Nasu, a town near the park, told The Asahi Shimbun that he hoped the fox had been released to tackle global warming.
“This is the beginning of a new murder stone legend,” he said.
Masako Hitomi, 80, whose husband is a retired Shinto priest at a shrine in Nasu that pays tribute to the fox, said she believed the scientific explanation for the rock’s fracture.
At the same time, she said, all of the bleak news of late, including the war in Ukraine and the pandemic, seems to have played a part in the stone’s fate. (Wednesday, a powerful submarine earthquake in the Fukushima region of Japan, north of Nasu, killed at least three and injured more than 190.)
“It broke by carrying too much misery of the world,” she said. “Since the stone has borne evil, I hope that all these terrible events will soon end.”