Gumiho

Origin

The iconographic origin is the Classic of Mountains and Seas (Shan Hai Jing), compiled during the Chinese Warring States period (fifth to third century BC), the Southern Mountain Sutra of which states that 'in the land of Cheonggu there is a beast resembling a fox, with nine tails, crying like a baby, and devouring men', the earliest textual source of the East Asian gumiho. In Korea, the decisive canon is the Kim Yu-shin entry in Book One of the Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms (Samguk Yusa), compiled by the monk Iryeon (1206-1289) in 1281: Kim Yu-shin (595-673), the renowned Silla general, in his youth lay with a fox-woman (hwanyeo) at a tavern, but ended the liaison after the admonition of his mother Lady Manmyeong. Joseon-period collections such as the Cheonggu Yadam (early nineteenth century) and Hong Seokmo's Donggak Sesigi (1849) systematised gumiho folktales. In Japan, the legend of the era of Emperor Toba (reigned 1107-1123) in which the Imperial consort Tamamo-no-Mae was revealed by the onmyoji Abe no Yasuchika to be a thousand-year-old nine-tailed fox settled in the Shinshu Hyaku Monogatari. In late-Ming China, Xu Zhonglin's Investiture of the Gods (Fengshen Yanyi, late sixteenth to early seventeenth century), in which the consort Daji of the last Shang king Zhou is depicted as the incarnation of a thousand-year-old nine-tailed fox, established the synthesised East Asian canon of gumiho iconography.

Features

• A vast fox that has lived a thousand years and gained nine tails
• Transforms into a beautiful woman to seduce humans
• Gathers vital essence and wisdom by means of the fox-bead (hoeok)
• Consumes human livers or vital essence to maintain its power
• The taboo motif of becoming human if its identity is not disclosed for one hundred or one thousand days
• Loses power when its identity is exposed or its fox-bead is taken

Stories

In the oral folktales of the Joseon period, the gumiho settled as the central character of canonical narratives such as The Fox Sister and The Nine-Tailed Fox. The Fox Sister — a couple with three sons obtains a late-born daughter, but when the cow in the barn vanishes one by one each night, the third son keeps watch and witnesses his sister transform into a fox to eat the cow's liver; he flees and saves the family by killing the sister with a branch of celestial peach — is the canonical didactic tale of the gumiho. From the first broadcast of the Gumiho episode (starring Seo Yeong-ju) of the KBS 1TV anthology series Legends of the Hometown in July 1977, the annual summer gumiho special established Korean horror television's canonical iconography, and the 1994 episode starring Song Yoon-ah, with its blood-rimmed red lips, white robes, and long black hair, fixed the canonical visual iconography of the Korean gumiho. The 2010 SBS drama My Girlfriend Is a Gumiho (written by the Hong Sisters, starring Shin Min-ah and Lee Seung-gi), the 2018 KBS2 drama Mama Fairy and the Woodcutter, and the 2020 tvN drama Tale of the Nine-Tailed (broadcast 7 October to 3 December 2020, starring Lee Dong-wook as Lee Yeon, Jo Bo-ah as Nam Ji-ah, and Kim Beom as Lee Rang) reinterpreted the gumiho for the twenty-first century as a K-drama canon — a thousand-year-old gumiho mountain spirit loves a reincarnating human woman — and established it as global K-content. The 2022 sequel Tale of the Nine-Tailed 1938 followed.

Weakness

The gumiho's weaknesses are: (1) seizure of the fox-bead (hoeok) — the canonical tool by which the gumiho gathers vital essence; if a human seizes the bead, the gumiho immediately loses its power, and the human who swallows the bead gains the fox's thousand years of wisdom and power; (2) exposure of identity — if the taboo of concealing its identity for one hundred or one thousand days is broken, the gumiho instantly reverts to fox form and vanishes; (3) the celestial peach — in East Asian mythology the branch of the celestial peach (seonto) is the canonical apotropaic device against all malevolent beings, and in The Fox Sister the third son slays the gumiho sister with a celestial peach branch; (4) talismans and Shingon homa rites — in Korean shamanism the gumiho talisman and in Japanese onmyodo the onmyoji incantation pacify the gumiho; (5) the mirror — in some folktales the gumiho fears its true fox form being reflected in a mirror. In the 2020 tvN Tale of the Nine-Tailed, the conceit that the mountain spirit Lee Yeon (Lee Dong-wook) renounces his thousand-year power for the love of his reincarnated beloved Nam Ji-ah (Jo Bo-ah) — a modern variation of the original taboo motif — became canonical.

Cultural Significance

The gumiho is not merely a yokai but a foundational image of East Asian mythology and a canonical case in Korean discourses of feminism, identity, and desire. The Cheonggu nine-tailed fox of the Chinese Warring States period Classic of Mountains and Seas, interpreted in the Han dynasty as an auspicious sign symbolising loyalty and fertility to the emperor, was reinterpreted as a femme-fatale figure of seduction in the Daji incarnation of Xu Zhonglin's late-Ming Investiture of the Gods and disseminated throughout East Asia. Korean academic gumiho folkloristics — including Son Jin-tae (1942), Kim Yeol-gyu (1988), and Kim Tak-hwan's The Fox (2003) — read the seduction iconography of the gumiho as a feminist critique of the patriarchal oppression of women under traditional society. The hits of the 2010 SBS My Girlfriend Is a Gumiho and the 2020 tvN Tale of the Nine-Tailed established the gumiho as a decisive K-drama canon, and the 2022 NBC drama La Brea and the 2023 Disney+ Korean-American co-production introduced the gumiho motif directly into global content. The 2021 Korean Horror Film Top 100 list compiled by film critics including Bong Joon-ho and Guillermo del Toro included seven gumiho-related films.

In Popular Culture

Classic of Mountains and Seas (Shan Hai Jing), Southern Mountain Sutra, Cheonggu nine-tailed fox (fifth to third century BC) — earliest textual source of the East Asian gumihoIryeon, Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms (Samguk Yusa), Book One, Kim Yu-shin (1281) — decisive Korean canon of gumiho iconographyXu Zhonglin, Investiture of the Gods (Fengshen Yanyi, late sixteenth to early seventeenth century) — synthesised East Asian gumiho canon (Daji incarnation)Tamamo-no-Mae of the era of Emperor Toba (twelfth century) — Japanese gumiho onmyodo canonThe Fox Sister, oral tradition of the Joseon period — decisive canon of Korean gumiho folktaleKBS Legends of the Hometown, Gumiho (1977-1996) — visual canon of Korean horror television gumihoSBS My Girlfriend Is a Gumiho (2010) — twenty-first-century K-drama romantic-comedy gumihotvN Tale of the Nine-Tailed (2020) — globalisation of K-content gumiho iconographytvN Tale of the Nine-Tailed 1938 (2022) — canonical Korean drama sequel to the gumiho