Talk:Nine-tailed fox

Redirect

Fox spirits are very specific East Asian mythological creatures. And a quick Google Books search with the terms on this dab page reflects that. An article such as Foxes in popular culture is to broad too serve as a end-point for a redirect, because it's about foxes in general. --Cold Season (talk) 01:06, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

• A section redirect could be made to point to the specific content in that article that is referenced here. I presume that all of the uses of "fox spirit" on this page refer to a "spirit" in the form of a "fox", which is not an ambiguous concept, but a single concept with subtopics. bd2412 T 06:01, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Merging all the east Asian fox spirit threads.

Hello, I'm very new to wiki so apologies if this isn't how to ask. Is it worth merging the various fox spirits threads related to East asia? If I understand it right, they all have a common origin with regional variations. A lot of the stories overlap and a lot of worship has occurred in various time periods. Zophixan (talk) 07:12, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Fox spirit in Naruto

I think that should be mentioned somewhere, I would guess its one of the main reasons people stumble upon this page. CaffeineWitcher (talk) 16:43, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Huli jing which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 23:00, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

"Nine Tailed Fox" (Epsilon-11) in SCP universe

i dont think that's the reason why people stumble upon this page, but i think it should be mentioned.. 46.252.225.100 (talk) 00:42, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Is there a reliable source discussing this? BD2412 T 04:37, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

White Fox

Marvel Comics' White Fox is inspired by the legends of Kumiho TurboNZ (talk) 05:18, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Proposal to correct WP:SYNTH and clear historical anachronism regarding “Cheong-gu” (Ready-to-use text & Academic Sources provided)

Resolved

 – The issue has been successfully fixed in the main article by editors based on the academic citations provided. Thank you!

Message Body: Hello regular editors and admins, I am dropping this here for anyone who has the time to update the article. There is a fundamental historical anachronism and WP:SYNTH issue in the current text that violates WP:NPOV and needs to be addressed. To save everyone’s time, I have drafted an objective, fact-based replacement text below, fully supported by top-tier Western academic sources and university presses. The Core Logical & Historical Issue: The article currently claims that “Cheong-gu” (Qingqiu) in the 2,000-year-old Chinese text Shanhaijing refers to modern-day Korea, thereby attempting to establish the nine-tailed fox as a Korean origin symbol. This is chronologically and geographically inaccurate. In ancient Chinese cosmology, “Qingqiu” (literally “Green Hills,” as green represents the East in the Five Elements) referred to a mythical eastern realm. Centuries later, Korean literati during the Goryeo/Joseon eras poetically adopted this classical Chinese term as a literary, elegant nickname for the Korean peninsula (due to their geographical location east of China). To put this logical fallacy into Western perspectives: 1. The “Indian” Fallacy: It is logically equivalent to claiming that ancient Sanskrit texts mentioning “Indians” were actually referring to Native Americans, simply because Christopher Columbus retroactively applied the same name to them centuries later. 2. The “York” Fallacy: It is like claiming an ancient Roman text mentioning the city of “York” (Eboracum) was actually describing “New York” in the USA. A later cultural adoption of a literary name cannot be retroactively applied to a 2,000-year-old text to redefine its original geographical meaning. Proposed Revision (Ready for copy-paste): Please replace the problematic paragraph with the following objective, consensus-based text: “The first recorded appearance of the nine-tailed fox can be found in the ancient Chinese text, Shanhaijing (Classic of Mountains and Seas), which states: ‘In the land of Qingqiu, there lives a fox with nine tails.’ In early Chinese mythology, Qingqiu (Korean: Cheong-gu; ‘Green Hills’) referred to a mythical eastern realm. Centuries later, Korean literati poetically adopted the classical term ‘Cheong-gu’ as a literary nickname for the Korean peninsula. The nine-tailed fox myth later spread throughout East Asia, evolving into distinct regional variations, including the Korean Gumiho, the Japanese Kitsune, and the Vietnamese Hồ ly tinh.” High-Tier Academic References (Please add these to the revision): 1. On the original myth in Shanhaijing: • Birrell, Anne. The Classic of Mountains and Seas. Penguin Classics, 1999. (The standard Western translation, identifying Qingqiu purely as a mythical Eastern wilderness). • Strassberg, Richard E. A Chinese Bestiary: Strange Creatures from the Guideways Through Mountains and Seas. University of California Press, 2002. (Confirms Qingqiu and the nine-tailed fox as early Chinese mythology). 2. On the transmission of the myth: • Huntington, Rania. Alien Kind: Foxes and Late Imperial Chinese Narrative. Harvard University Asia Center, 2003. (Tracks the origin of fox spirits in China and their subsequent cultural transmission to Korea and Japan). 3. On “Cheong-gu” merely being a later poetic alias for Korea: • Lee, Peter H. A History of Korean Literature. Cambridge University Press, 2003. (Confirms that “Cheong-gu” was used by later Korean writers, such as in the 18th-century anthology ‘Cheonggu yeongeon’, purely as a poetic name for their country, not as an ancient territorial claim). I don’t have the time to actively edit, monitor, or debate on this page, so I am leaving this ready-to-use correction and academic evidence here hoping a regular contributor will step in to fix the misinformation. Thank you! CaffeineChaos (talk) 19:41, 16 May 2026 (UTC)