::Fox Girl::

Digital Print on Hahnemuehle Photo Rag 308 gsm 100% acid 
free cotton.
Editions : 20
Size : 297mm x 420mm
Andrea Innocent (a.k.a innocentgirl), 2006.

All images © Andrea Innocent 2005 - 2008

The fox (Kitsune), as with the Tanuki (racoon-dog) is a popular character in Japanese folklore and is often seen as a trickster, able to transform itself into human form, most often as young and beautiful women, any children they bear will often have supernatural powers.

The tale of “Kuzunoha” tells the story of a young nobleman, Abe no Yasuna, who, on his way to visit a shrine in Shinoda, encounters a young military commissioner who is hunting foxes to obtain their livers for use as medicine. Yasuna battle the hunter and sets free the white fox he had trapped. Following this he meets a beautiful young women who tends to his wounds sustained in his battle. They return home together, fall in love and eventually marry. Later, she bears a child (a boy they call Seimei who grows up to be very clever). One day while Kuzunoha is distracted viewing the chrysanthemums in the garden her son catches a sight of the tip of her tail. Her secret is revealed, Kuzunoha departs to again live her life in the wild, leaving a farewell poem which asks that her husband and son come to see her in the Shinoda Forest.
Husband and son search for Kuzunoha and she appears to them in fox form, she tells them she is a kami (deific spirit) of Shinoda Shrine and she gives her son Seimei a gift, hoping he will come to comprehend the language of beasts.

The Fox-woman Kuzunoha Leaving Her
Child New Forms of Thirty-Six Ghosts,
1889-1892. A famous print depicting 
Kuzunoha's departure. Tsukioka
Yoshitoshi.