Fox Direct - Fox's Attack

…This is the result of the decline of the belief that foxes are the disguise or messenger of Inari, the god of agriculture, and spiritual beasts, while stories such as the “golden-haired nine-tailed fox” from China, in which foxes disguise themselves as women and deceive people, spread among intellectuals, and the belief in the Buddhist god Dakiniten was added, and the image of foxes' spiritual power gradually came to have a supernatural nature, which can be said to be a manifestation of the change since the Middle Ages. Before that, even in literature, the legend of Kitsune no Atai, which was written about in the “Nihon Ryōiki,” in which a spiritual fox became a human's wife and left powerful descendants, was told without shame as a proof of old families. Until the early modern period, such stories were passed down to old families all over the country as legends of the “Shinoda Wife,” which tells of Abe no Seimei's origins. …

*Some of the terminology explanations that mention "Fox Direct" are listed below.

Source | Heibonsha World Encyclopedia 2nd Edition | Information

…これはキツネが農耕神としての稲荷の仮の姿，または使者であり，霊獣であるという信仰が衰微していき，他方，知識人の間では中国伝来の，キツネが女に化けて人をだますという〈金毛九尾狐〉などの話が広まり，さらに仏教系の神である荼枳尼天（だきにてん）などの信仰が加わって，その霊力がしだいに妖怪的な内容をもつとイメージされるようになった結果であり，中世以来の変化の現れといえる。それ以前には，文献上でも《日本霊異記》に記された狐直（きつねのあたい）のように，霊あるキツネが人の妻となって強力な子孫を残したという伝承が恥ずるところなく旧家のあかしとして語られた。このような話は，近世に至るまで安倍晴明の出自を語る〈信田（しのだ）妻〉の系統の伝説として各地の旧家に伝えられた。…

※「狐直」について言及している用語解説の一部を掲載しています。

出典｜株式会社平凡社世界大百科事典 第２版について | 情報