The Fox Sister

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The Fox Sister is a Korean fairy tale.^[1]

[edit] Synopsis

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.

[edit] Commentary

In the Confucian view, it may be interpreted on the importance of keeping daughters in their lowly place and favoring the more important sons over them.^[2]