THE FOX SISTERS Biography - Religious Figures & Icons

 
 

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THE FOX SISTERS

The Fox Sister is a Korean fairy tale.                                                 
                                                                                       
A man had three sons and no daughter. He prayed for a daughter, even if she were       
a fox. His wife gave birth to a daughter, but when the girl was six, one of             
their cows died every night. He set his oldest son to watch. The boy watched,           
and told him that his sister did it, by pulling the liver out of the cow and           
eating it. His father accused him of having fallen asleep and having a nightmare.       
He threw out his son. The second son was set to watch, and nothing happened             
until the moon was full again, but then the sister struck, and the second son           
ended the same. The youngest son was set and claimed that their sister had gone         
to the outhouse, and the cow must have died from seeing the moon.                       
                                                                                       
The older brothers wandered until they met a Buddhist monk, who sent them back         
with three magical bottles. They found the sister living alone; she told them           
their parents and brother had died, and implored them to stay. Finally, she             
persuaded them to stay the night and somehow made a rich meal for them. In the         
night, the older brother was woken by the sounds of chewing. He rolled over, saw       
the meal, and realized that they had been eating corpses. The sister stood over         
his dead brother, eating his liver. She told him that she needed only one more         
to become a human.                                                                     
                                                                                       
He fled. He threw the white bottle behind him, and it became a thicket of thorns.       
As a fox, she made her way through it. He threw the blue bottle behind him, and         
trapped her in a river, but as a fox, she swam ashore. He threw the red bottle         
behind, and she was trapped in fire. It burned her until she was no more than a         
mosquito.