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Some people say that if the Nogitsune lives a hundred years it becomes all white, and then takes rank as an Inari-fox. There are curious contradictions involved in these beliefs, and other contradictions will be found in the following pages of this sketch.
There are good and bad foxes. The Inari-fox is good, and the bad foxes are afraid of the Inari-fox. It is no larger than a weasel, and somewhat similar in shape, except for its tail, which is like the tail of any other fox. It is rarely seen, keeping itself invisible, except to those to whom it attaches itself.
Indeed, there exists a letter from Hideyoshi to the Fox-God which would seem to show that in the time of the great Taiko the Inari-fox and the demon fox were considered identical. This letter is still preserved at Nara, in the Buddhist temple called Todaiji: KYOTO, the seventeenth day of the Third Month.
Some people again class foxes into Superior and Inferior Foxes, and allege the existence of four Superior Sorts Byakko, Kokko, Jenko, and Reiko all of which possess supernatural powers. Others again count only three kinds of foxes the Field-fox, the Man-fox, and the Inari-fox. But many confound the Field- fox or wild fox with the Man-fox, and others identify the Inari-fox with the Man-fox.
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