The Fox Wife

Superstitions characterize the supernatural world of The Fox Wife and inform how foxes interact with their human counterparts. A fox’s experience of the human world is first determined by their gender. Snow alludes to gender stereotypes: “Foxes, people say, are wicked women. […] [M]ost tales focus on the beautiful female foxes who live by devouring qi” (8). Male foxes, for their part, are often referred to as cuckolds and great seducers of married women: “There was once a merchant whose wife was possessed by an evil fox spirit. Appearing in the shape of a young man, he entered the woman’s chamber night after night” (57).

As a whole, foxes are stereotyped as highly sexual beings who siphon the life and happiness of humans. Foxes generally meet a terrible end in these tales, be it through a raid party as Snow describes, being boiled alive in a bottle as Lu recounts, or being blown up by gunpowder as Shiro mentions.

Such beliefs have consequences for foxes like Snow and generate anxiety and caution in all three foxes.  Fox history shows how superstitions and stereotypes can be weaponized, which Snow alludes to when discussing “a purge of foxes” (356).

Superstitions about foxes are not without a grain of truth.