The History of China - #277 - Strange Tales IX: Fox Tails

Episode Date: October 9, 2024

A trio of seasonal tales about the Korean version of the classic fox spirit, the kumiho (huli jing [CN]/kitsune [JP]) as well as their implications bout the societies they stemmed from. "The Maiden's Grave" - 02:21 "The Bone The Was a Fox" - 03:39 "The Fox Sister" - 06:22 From: Fenkl, Heinz Inzu. "Fox Wives & Other Dangerous Women." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an the Ancient World Podcast. Available on all podcasting platforms or go to ancientworldpodcast.com. That's the Ancient World Podcast. Hello, and welcome to the History of China. Episode 277, Strange Tales 9, Fox Tales. Fox Wives and Other Dangerous Women By Heinz Insufenkel I saw pale kings and princes too,

Pale warriors, death-pale they were all, Who cried, La belle dame sans merci, Hath thee enthrall. I saw their starved lips in the gloam with horrid warning gaped wide, and I awoke and found me here on the cold hillside. And this is why I sojourn here, alone and palely loitering, though the sedge is withered from the lake and no birds sing. John Keats, La Belle Dame Saint-Merci, 1819, a year before his death by consumption.

In Korea, the most frightening ghosts are the ghosts of young women who have not fulfilled their feminine potential. In other words, women who died without marrying and having children, preferably male children. In the old days, there was a custom of burying dead maidens in a flat grave or near a well-traveled road in the hopes that some passing gentleman would expose to this maiden's spirit his most precious thing. I had always wondered about this custom, since traditional graves are all constructed with a dome-shaped mound of earth on top. The larger mounds are so huge a whole school class could picnic on one.

They represent royalty. The smallest mounds would be about a diameter of a hula hoop, and they represent infants. When I was ten, my storyteller uncle explained this most precious thing to me by telling me this story. The Maiden's Grave One evening, a young scholar was staggering down a trail in the mountains, drunk from having imbibed too much at a local celebration. He was in such a hurry that he didn't even have time to go into the woods,

and he relieved himself right on the road, pissing for a long time right there. Just as he was pulling his pants up and tying the strings, he heard a young woman's voice. I am eternally grateful to you, she said. I died a maiden, and so I was buried here in a flat grave. But now that you have shown me your most precious thing, I can go into the next world fulfilled.

The young scholar was frightened out of his wits, but they say the maiden's ghost was kind to him, and eventually, when he went to maiden's ghost was kind to him, and eventually, when he went to the capital to take the civil examination, he passed with the highest marks in the land. The Bone That Was a Fox One day, a man relieved himself on a bone that was lying on the path. Is it warm? he said. It's warm, the bone replied.

Is it cold? It's cold, said the bone. The frightened man ran away, hardly able to pull his pants up, and the bone chased him. Finally, he came to an ale house, and he escaped out of the back. Years later, the same man stopped at a nail house to drink, and he was served by a ravishingly beautiful woman. My, he said to her, you look familiar for some reason. I should, she replied, because I'm the bone you made water on all those years ago,

and I've been waiting for you. And suddenly she changed into her true form, which was a fox, and she ate him up. The moral of these stories is not that men in old Korea had to be careful where they urinated. They are tales that seem to be flip sides of one another, and yet ones which reflect similar underlying fears about femininity. When I was a boy, we used to terrify each other with ghost stories late at night, and nearly all the evil ghosts were female. Two of the most frightening images I recall are the broom ghost, an evil being created when the maiden's first menstrual blood happens to pollute a yard broom, and the classic dead maiden's ghost, a figure dressed all in white with long black hair. The maiden's ghost often appears out of the center of a grave mound that splits in two.

By the late 60s, when the Dracula films made it to Korea, the maiden's ghost was often depicted with long bloody fangs. There was also the egg ghost, one whose face was entirely blank, and the ghosts of women who died after they had wrongly lost their virtue. In Korea in the 60s, it was still common for someone traveling at night in the country to challenge a stranger with the question, Are you man or ghost? My mother's oldest brother was said to have been enticed by a ghost when he was

a young man. That was the story of how he'd gotten the wound on his foot that would never heal. Over the years, he had to sell off most of his land for expensive Chinese herbal remedies and shamanic ceremonies to cure his foot, but to no avail. Western doctors had told him to amputate the foot nearly 30 years earlier, but he had stubbornly maintained his search for a cure. So, when he told me my first fox demon story in a room filled with the faint odor of his festering wound, it was all the more convincing. The Fox Sister A long time ago, there was a man who had three sons but no daughters. It was his dearest wish to have a daughter, so he went up to the mountains and prayed to the spirits.

One night, after months of prayer, he was so desperate that he said, Please, Hananim, give me a daughter, even if she is a fox. He said, night, a cow would die, and in the morning they could never find a trace of what had killed it. So the man told his first son to keep watch one night. In the morning, the first son told a terrible story of what happened. Father, I could not believe my own eyes, he said. It is our little sister who is killing the cattle. She came out in the middle of the night, and I followed her to the cattle shed. By the moonlight I could see her as she did a little dance. Then she oiled her hand and her arm with sesame oil. She shoved her whole arm into the cow's anus and pulled out its liver. She ate it raw while the cow died without a sound. That is all I saw, father,

for it was too horrible to witness any longer. The father was outraged. That is not possible, he said. Tell me the truth. That is the truth, father. Then you must have had a nightmare. That means you have betrayed my trust by falling asleep when you were supposed to keep watch. Leave my sight at once. You are no longer my son. And so he threw out his eldest son. In all human history, there are few stories like that of ancient Egypt. On the banks of the Nile, these people created one of the most enduring and significant cultures. Their tale comes to life in the History of Egypt podcast. Every week, we explore the tales of this amazing culture, from the legendary days of creation and the gods, all the way to Cleopatra, and everything in between. The History of Egypt podcast is written and produced by a trained Egyptologist.

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That is the truth, father. Then you must have had a nightmare. That means you have betrayed my trust by falling asleep when you were supposed to keep watch. Leave my sight at once. You are no longer my son. And so he threw out his second son. So it was the youngest son's turn to keep watch over his sister, and once again everything was fine for a month. When the full moon came around, the same thing happened, but having seen the fates of his older brothers, the youngest son lied. Father, he said, our little sister came out in the middle of the night, and I followed her to the outhouse. She made water and came out again.

As I passed by the cattle shed in the moonlight, I saw that a cow had died. It must have been frightened by the full moon. Then you have done your duty as a son should, said the father. You shall inherit my lands when I have gone to join our ancestors. Meanwhile, the first two sons were no more than beggars wandering the countryside. Eventually, they had both come to the top of a mountain, where an old Buddhist master took them in, and they studied diligently with him until their hearts grew sore to see their home again. After a year, they decided to return to their village for a visit. The old master made the two brothers a gift of three magic bottles, one white, one blue, and one red.

Use these as I have instructed, and you shall be able to defeat any foe, even that sister of yours, who is surely a fox demon. The brothers thanked the old monk and returned to their village to find it entirely deserted. When they reached their house, they found the roof in terrible disrepair and the yard overgrown with weeds. Inside, the paper panels on the doors were all in tatters. They found their sister all alone. Where is everyone? Where is father? Where's our youngest brother? Where's mother? They asked. They're all dead, said the sister. She didn't explain, but the brothers knew why. I'm all alone now, she said. Brothers,

won't you stay with me? No, they said. We must be on our way. There's nothing for us here. Why? It's nearly dark, said the sister.

Won't you at least stay the night? They reluctantly agreed, and somehow the sister prepared them a fabulous meal with wine that night. They were suspicious, and they planned to take turns keeping watch that night. But they had been so starved during their year of poverty that they ate and drank their fill, and soon they were fast asleep. In the middle of the night, the older brother awoke suddenly with a full bladder. He thought his younger brother was still eating. It sounded like someone chewing, so he turned over in annoyance to tell him to stop. In the moonlight, he saw the table still in the room, their leftovers strewn about. But instead of white

rice, what he saw were maggots. Instead of wine, there were cups of blood. Instead of turnip kimchi, there were severed human fingers. He sat up in horror, realizing what he had eaten. And then he saw what was making the noise. It was his sister, straddling his dead brother's body, chewing on his bloody liver. Did you sleep well, dear oldest brother? she said. I only need one more, and then I will be a human being. The oldest brother leaped up from his sleeping mat and ran out of the house. He was still groggy from the enchanted food, and he stumbled and staggered as he ran down the road in the moonlight.

Soon his sister gave chase, and she easily caught up with him. Remembering the old Buddhist monk's instructions, the brother took the white bottle and threw it behind him. Suddenly, in a puff of smoke, a vast thicket of thorn bushes blocked the sister's way. She was trapped for a moment, but then she changed into her original form, that of the fox, and easily escaped. In a short time, she had caught up to him again. This time, the brother took the blue bottle and threw it behind him.

There was a loud splash, and a vast lake appeared. Once again, the sister was trapped. She struggled to swim, but then she changed into the fox again and easily paddled ashore. The oldest brother was exhausted and terrified. He could run no more. He took the red bottle and he flung it at the fox, saying, yeah, take that! There was a blinding flash of light, and the fox was engulfed in a ball of fire. She burned to death, screaming. And when there were only ashes left, a small, whining insect flew out.

And that is how the first mosquito came into the world. And that is why both the fox and the mosquito are afraid of grass fires. In order to make its point, the story invokes one of the most feared feminine figures, the fox demon, and pits it against the most desired male figure, the eldest son, who happens to be the hero of this tale. To remind the listener that the fox has not been entirely vanquished, the story explains the origin of the blood-sucking mosquito by linking it to the fox demon. This seems simply a clever narrative twist at first, but keep in mind that it also serves a rather pointed ideological function. In Korea, summers tend to be mosquito-infested,

even today, because of the rice paddies. The ending of the story ensures that every time someone is bitten by a female mosquito, they recall the cautionary tale that idealizes sons and demonized daughters. It serves as a sharply honed ideological tool disguised as entertainment and tradition. That will wrap it up for us today for our latest installment of Strange Tales, but don't worry, we will be back very soon with even more. Until then, enjoy the autumnal cool, and as always, thanks for listening. The Civil War and Reconstruction was a pivotal era in American history.

When a war was fought to save the Union and to free the slaves. And when the work to rebuild the nation after that war was over turned into a struggle to guarantee liberty and justice for all Americans. I'm Tracy. And I'm Rich. And we want to invite you to join us as we take an in-depth look at this pivotal era in American history. Look for The Civil War and Reconstruction wherever you find your podcasts.