No. 003
Nine-tailed fox
九尾狐구미호 (gumiho)
A fox with nine tails, told of as an uncanny creature that takes human form, often a beautiful woman, to bewitch people. In the Joseon court annals the name was also used as a figure of speech for a treacherous official.
Names
- Korean
- 구미호
- Hanja
- 九尾狐
- Revised Romanization
- gumiho
- McCune-Reischauer
- kumiho
- English
- Nine-tailed fox
Appearance
A fox with nine tails that appears disguised in human form.
Abilities
- Transforms into a human and bewitches people.
- In one tale type it keeps a bead in its mouth; a schoolboy who snatches and swallows it comes to understand the workings of the earth.
Other names
- kumiho - McCune-Reischauer spelling, common in English.
Related creatures
- Related Gildal - Gildal in Samguk Yusa also escapes by turning into a fox.
Attestations
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Veritable Records of King Danjong Chronicle
Original又曰: "邪爲九尾, 毒則兩頭。"
Translation (Korean)(사람들이) 또 말하기를, "간사하기는 아홉 꼬리요, 독하기는 두 머리다."
Translation (English)(People) also said: "In guile, the nine-tailed; in venom, the two-headed."
What it says: The obituary of Jeong Ihan, governor of Pyeongan, records a saying that likened his guile to 'the nine-tailed'. The original reads 九尾; the modern translation and its note render it as the nine-tailed fox. An early Korean use of the figure.
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Veritable Records of King Myeongjong Chronicle
Original盤據要路, 人實側目, 指爲九尾狐。
Translation (Korean)요직을 차지하고 있으니 사람들이 곁눈질하며 그를 구미호라 손가락질했다.
Translation (English)He held the key posts; people eyed him sidelong and pointed him out as a nine-tailed fox.
What it says: A historian's comment says people pointed to Go Maengyeong as a '九尾狐'; the full three-character name appears verbatim.
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Encyclopedia of Korean Culture Encyclopedia
What it says: States that fox lore mostly casts the fox as an uncanny creature, such as the gumiho, that torments people with its tricks, and glosses the gumiho as the nine-tailed fox of old tales that bewitches people.
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Encyclopedia of Korean Culture Encyclopedia
What it says: The tale type in which a schoolboy takes and swallows the bead from the mouth of a fox (gumiho) disguised as a woman; notes that gumiho tales are especially common in Hamgyeong, Pyeongan and Hwanghae.
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Encyclopedia of Korean Culture Encyclopedia
What it says: Explains that the earliest record of the name Cheonggu is the Chinese Shan Hai Jing's entry on the land of Qingqiu, home of a nine-tailed fox; this shows the nine-tailed fox idea itself comes from Chinese literature.
Interpretation and notes
The nine-tailed fox idea comes from the Chinese Shan Hai Jing. When a Korean text first records the gumiho as a shapeshifter that harms people has not yet been established in this dataset.