Note 12 — VIII.—WITCHCRAFT AND DEMONOLOGY.

But of all known animals the fox plays the principal part in Chinese demonology. European folk-lore assigns a prominent place to the were-wolves (Germ. Wehrwolf, Port. Lobis-homem), which are even now believed by the superstitious peasantry of many countries to haunt their native forests. Well, in China we find the same idea in a slightly different form. The fox takes the place of the wolf, and “fairy foxes” play an important part in every native collection of supernatural tales. The belief in their existence dates from remote antiquity, though more prevalent in Northern than in Southern China, the inhabitants of the latter taking the doings of genii more especially as the basis of their fairy lore. There is however this difference between the were-wolf and the fairy fox:—that whereas the former is invariably malicious, the latter may be either beneficent or malignant. In many of the tales the fox is only transformed (as in the well-known nursery story of “Beauty and the Beast”) into human shape after making acquaintance with its host. “At the age of 50 the fox can take the form of a woman, and at that of 100 can assume the appearance of a young and beautiful girl. When 1000 years old he is admitted to the heavens and becomes the celestial fox.”12