Tiktakers, welcome to another horror Wednesday. Today we travel to South Korea.
There lived a very poor young peasant accompanied by his elderly mother. They had a hut in a remote
area of the forest, and although they were very good people, they barely had enough to eat.
One midsummer day, with the sun shining brightly, his mother told him that she
was looking forward to eating cold noodles in soya horchata. For this dish he needed ice,
so although it was difficult to find it, the young man went in search of it.
To do so, he had to cross the town, with such bad luck that on the way he
came across a group of heartless young men. They told him that the only place
where he could find ice was in a hidden valley inhabited by ghosts and spirits.
The young man, eager to fulfill his mother's whims, set out to go.
When he arrived it was already dark, he could only see what the moon allowed him to see.
And suddenly, he came upon a scene he wished he had never seen.
A nine-tailed vixen was tearing out a man's liver. He was alive and trying to defend himself,
but the animal's teeth clamped down hard. The young man could not help but let out
a scream of terror, which startled the fox, who quickly ran to meet him.
He, very frightened, knelt down and begged her to let him live. He explained that he
had gone there for the sole purpose of finding ice for his old mother. This moved the animal,
who made him promise that he could not tell anyone about what he had seen and would let him go.
The young man accepted the deal and was able to get home safe and sound. After a few months,
he managed to find love in a young woman he met in the forest. She
stayed with him and his mother and together they had two daughters.
But they were so poor that the girls barely had enough to eat.
After the birth of the second one, the woman began to behave strangely. Every night she would
disappear until the early hours of the morning and come back with pearls of great value. With
the proceeds from selling them in the market the family left hunger behind and welcomed comfort.
The man was intrigued by the origin of the pearls, but he decided not to ask questions and
even encouraged his wife to go out to look for them.
But one day she came home with a major wound. It was from an arrow and it almost cost her her life.
He, in desperation, tried to distract her by telling her the story of the nine-tailed
fox he had seen years before. But before he could finish speaking she let out a terrible scream and
transformed into a fox. In a weak voice he managed to say to her, "Ten years ago tomorrow we met,
if you had kept the secret until then I would have become a woman forever. But
there is no turning back now." At that moment she grabbed her two little girls and left for good.
Today we want to tell you about the Korean legend of the Gumiho. Its literal translation
is nine-tailed fox, and this already gives us a lot of information about what we are going to talk
about. Nine-tailed foxes are common in folklore originating in Korea, China and Japan. According
to these legends it is a fox that by living for more than 100 years can become a spirit and change
shape. The most common is that of a beautiful young woman who seduces men and eats their souls.
This, literally, because this young woman is often represented in the body of a fox devouring the
liver or the heart of a man. There are different versions of that legend, but all agree that if the
gumiho nature of the fox is discovered by humans, it means the end of their lives. Sometimes, they
can make deals, and if the human who discovered the Gumiho keeps the secret for a specific time,
he can keep the human form. This is what he desires most, to become a person.
Over time, their representation in the world of culture has grown.
We have been able to find nine-tailed foxes in K-Dramas such as "My Girlfriend is a Gumiho",
"Grudge: The Revolt of Gumiho" and "Gu Family Book", in a multitude of books and even in video
games such as League of Legends, with the character of Ahri, inspired by this figure.
Have you ever heard of them tiktakers? We have been
frozen with the image of a young girl devouring a human liver…