Ethymology
The word kitsune is an old name. Some have suggested that the origins of the word "kitsune" can be ascribed to an onomatopoeia with two sounds in the Japanese language, kitsu, which is the sound of a fox yelp, and ne, a word signifying affectionate feeling.
Other attribute it to an old legend involving a fox-wife.
In this story, the fox takes the shape of a woman and marries a human male, and the two, in the course of spending several happy years together, have several children. She is ultimately revealed as a fox when, terrified by a dog, she returns to her fox shape to hide, in the presence of many witnesses. She prepares to depart her home, but her husband prevails upon her, saying, "Now that we have spent so many years together, and I have had several children by you, I cannot simply forget you. Please come and sleep with me." The fox agrees, and from then on returns to her husband each night in the shape of a woman, leaving again each morning in the shape of a fox. Therefore, she comes to be called Kitsune — because, in the classical Japanese, "kitsu-ne" means "come and sleep," while "ki-tsune" means "always comes."
Origins
Kitsune, in their current manifestation, would have been introduced to Japan from China and Korea. The Japanese liked the kitsune so much, that it was adapted to the Japanese culture, and went through an amazing metamorphosis. But this is not proven as opponents put forward some textual and artistic support for the argument that they are indiginously Japanese, dating perhaps as far back as the fifth century, B.C.E. There is also some connection with the Indian Ruksasha. Kitsune are connected to both the shinto and Buddhist faiths.
Kitsune are often associated with the Shinto deity of rice known as Inari. Originally kitsune were the messengers of Inari, but the line between the two has now become blurred to the point that Inari is sometimes depicted as a fox and it became practice to build shrines to the kitsune themselves, instead of to Inari himself.
The symbol of Inari is the red torii (religious gateway), with the image of two white foxes. The white fox was the messenger of Inari, and shrines to Inari were found in almost every town, village, private manor, garden, and geisha house. These white foxes are called myobu. The word myobu is also the name of a court-rank for ladies in Japan. Kitsune gained the title, according to a legend, when a woman named Shin-no-myobu proclaimed that her luck in luck in finding a husband was granted by the messenger kitsune of Inari. Since then, they have been named myobu.
As well as Japan, Korea (Kumiho), and China (Huli Jing) , the nine-tailed werefox appears in a Vietnamese legend, where it was drowned by a dragon to create a lake, and even made it to Europe where it appears in the Grimm's fairytale "Mrs. Fox's Wedding".
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