Hey you.
Today on Tales From My Bookcase we have a story about hitchhiking gone wrong.
And kitsune.
Let me give you some background first.
This story is from the Konjaku Monogatari Shu (今昔物語集),
or Tales of Times Long Past.
It was a collection of more than a thousand stories, made in the late Heian Period.
This was a time of unrest.
The warrior class was emerging.
And what do you get when you cross a horse, a bow, and testosterone?
Yes, Khal Drogo, but what else?
You get theft, uprisings, killings, and all kinds of troubles for the common people.
People thought that the final age of Buddhist Law was upon them, the Degenerate Age.
They thought the world was slowly descending into chaos.
Buddhist teachings changed in this new era.
Buddhist teachings used to be like, “Hey guys, look at how neat everything is.
This world is so cool!”
But now they’re like, “This world is full of demons and creatures that can crush you
like a bug.
You better live a good life so you can reincarnate your sorry ass outta here.”
And so we got a lot of stories aimed at giving advice.
Advice on morality, on Buddhist teachings, and also advice on how to deal with supernatural
creatures like kitsune.
That’s the type of story I have for you in this video.
At the time, people also felt bad because they had to cut down trees and redirect rivers
to make farmland.
Yeah the population was growing and they needed food, but it kinda went against their religious
beliefs.
Traditional Shinto beliefs taught you respect for the environment, and Buddhist beliefs
taught that all lives are sacred, that includes plant lives.
Yeah plants can have life and attain Buddhahood.
And of course animal lives mattered too.
Okay, The Fox From the Koya River.
Long ago, there was a river called the Koya River, and a curious thing happened there.
A rumor spread around town that at night, you could see a pretty girl stand by the river.
Whenever a man on a horse rode by, she would ask him for a ride to Kyoto.
She was so pretty, and the man was a man, so of course he would agree
and let her sit behind him on the horse.
But after riding for a while, she would jump off and run away.
If the man gave chase, she would transform into a fox and escape.
Now there was a guard of the Imperial court who heard his peers talk about these strange
happenings.
The man doesn’t have a name in this story, so to make it easier to follow,
we’ll name him...The Man.
When The Man heard the other guards talking about this fox woman who always escaped, he
declared, “I will catch her.
How hard is it to catch a little fox woman who obviously has magical powers beyond my
human understanding.”
The other guards laughed in disbelief, which only strengthened The Man’s resolve.
One evening, he set out on his fancy horse to pick up this girl.
When he reached the river, sure enough, a woman was there, and sure enough, she was
as spicy as a jalapeno.
“May I have a ride to Kyoto, Horseman-san?” she asked.
The Man agreed and pulled her up, then suddenly tied her to the saddle.
She protested, “Why??”
He said, “Well, I like to sleep with a pretty woman in my arms”
and rode on back to the guardhouse.
But there was some commotion on the road up ahead.
He saw wagons and torches and people talking.
He thought it must’ve been someone important so he took another path.
When he finally got to the guardhouse, the other guards got out and were surprised that
The Man actually caught the fox woman.
The woman cried out in terror.
“Please let me go!
There are so many people here!”
The guards made a circle, drew their bows and arrows, and told The Man to release her
in the middle.
If she tried to escape, they would shoot the fox out of her.
So The Man untied her and released her into the middle of the circle.
But as he did, the woman transformed into a fox and darted off.
The torch lights flickered out, and the guards disappeared.
It was pitch black.
The Man called out but no one was there.
Even his horse must have run off.
He was in the middle of nowhere.
He was terrified and stumbled home in the dark.
When he reached his house hours later, he went straight to bed, scared and defeated.
He remained there for 3 days before going back to work and facing the other guards.
The guards did to The Man the usual thing that friends do to each other,
they made fun of his failure and insecurities.
“Hey so where’s the fox at?” one guard asked.
“I thought you were a master fox catcher,” another person said.
“Your parents hate you!” said one guy, but the others groaned and said,
“Shut up Kyle, that’s just taking it way too far.”
In response, The Man lied about being tricked and said,
“I was sick, actually, so I didn’t try to catch the fox.
I’ll try tomorrow night.”
And he proceeded to ignore their snickering.
The Man showed up at the river the next night.
He had to because he didn’t want to look embarrassed.
Although he was afraid, he decided if he could not catch her that night, he would stay in
his house forever instead of facing the other guards again.
That night, he saw a woman at the river, but it was a different woman this time.
She said the same thing: “May I have a ride to Kyoto, Horseman-san?”
Again, Horseman-san tied her to the horse.
She protested, but he ignored it and pushed on.
This time, there were no fake wagons and men ahead.
He rode all the way to the guardhouse and the guards came out.
They were surprised that he caught the fox.
“Let’s tie her up to teach her not to trick humans again,” said one guard.
“Let’s torture her,” said another guard.
“Let’s fry her up and eat her!”
shouted another guy.
Everyone groaned and said, “Dammit Kyle!”
They decided to push her down and torture her.
As she was being tortured, the woman did indeed turn back into a fox.
Upon seeing the creature, the guards grew madder
and burned the fox and shot it with arrows.
They said, “From now on you must never try to trick us”
and then they released the fox, who walked away with a limp.
Afterwards, The Man told the guards all about what had happened the first night.
Ten days after, The Man returned to the Koya River and again saw the same woman.
He asked, “Do you want a ride, miss?”
She said, “Yes, but I don’t want to get tortured” and ran away.
It looks like she learned her lesson.
The story ends by saying that the fox met its terrible fate
because it tried to trick humans.
Sorry guys, folktales don’t always have happy endings.
But there may be a reason for the unhappy ending.
You see, this story follows a pattern of stories that gave advice
on how to deal with supernatural creatures like kitsune.
But the story makes the guards seem so bad that you can’t help but think, is this satire?
Is it social commentary?
The guards are Imperial guards, not commoners.
Many stories at the time talked about the greed and excesses of the upper class.
This seems like one of those tales.
It flipped conventional wisdom and turned the trickster fox into a victim, and the respectable
Imperial guards into huge assholes.
Or it could’ve just been a story with an unhappy ending.
What do you think was the intent of the story?
Let me know in the comments.
Do you want more kitsune stories?
Check them out here.
Okay, we have new patrons this week, Brenda Cervantes and Eva Schiller.
Thanks so much you guys.
Alright much love, and spread the knowledge!