page_title: Kitsune no yomeiri
section_title: Related works
hierarchical_section_title: Kitsune no yomeiri / Related works
caption_attribution_description: Kitsune no yomeiri (祝言狐のむこ入り, The Fox's Wedding)
context_page_description: The Kitsune no Yomeiri, which is similar to "monkey's wedding" in English, is a strange event told about in Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu. The "kitsune no yomeiri" can refer to several things: atmospheric ghost lights, a phenomenon during which it appears as if paper lanterns from a wedding procession are floating through the dark; what is commonly referred to as a sunshower; and various strange wedding processions that can be seen in classical Japanese kaidan, essays, and legends. The "kitsune no yomeiri" is always closely related to foxes, or kitsune and various Shinto rituals and festive rights relating to the "kitsune no yomeiri" have been developed in various parts of Japan.
context_section_description: The "Kitsune no Yomeiri-zu" from the Edo period by the ukiyo-e artist Hokusai Katsushika was based upon this folk belief, and it depicted various people surprised by a fox's wedding procession and a sudden shower, and their bustle to take in their crop (refer to image). This has been pointed out to be an unusual example where the imaginary background of the foxes and the real customs of farming villages are depicted at the same time in a painting.
  In a poem of Kobayashi Issa, a haiku poet of the same era, there is one that read, "in the autumn flames and mountains, there is the rain of fox's weddings" (秋の火や山は狐の嫁入雨). Also, in the works of the Meiji period waka and haiku poet Kobayashi Issa, there was a tanka that read, "when the rain falls on the village from a blue sky at the hour of the horse, perhaps the king fox is getting married" (青空にむら雨すぐる馬時狐の大王妻めすらんか).
  Also in the ningyō jōruri "Dan no Ura Kabuto Gunki" (壇浦兜軍記) first performed in 1732, there was also "it was quite clear weather all the way up to now, but then I heard it, the playful rain of the fox's wedding" and in the period novel Onihei Hankachō published after the war, there was one volume titled "fox rain" (狐雨).
  Other than that, in Edo period kusazōshi and kibyōshi such as the Naimono Kuō Kitsune no Mukoiri (無物喰狐婿入) (illustrated by Kitao Masayoshi) published in 1785 (Tenmei 5), "Mukashigatari Kitsune Yomeiri" (昔語狐娶入) (illustrated by Kitao Shigemasa), and "Anasaka Kitsune Engumi" (穴賢狐縁組) (illustrated by Jippensha Ikku), as well as in Kamigata e-hon such as the "Shūgen Kitsune no Mukoiri" and "Ehon Atsumegusa," there are depictions of "foxes weddings" of humanized foxes going through weddings. There was a genre of works called "yomeiri mono" (嫁入り物, "wedding things") of humanized animals going through weddings, but foxes had the special characteristic of concretely having the name Inari no Kami attached to them. This is seen to be an indication that faith in the god Inari as well as "yomeiri mono" both deeply permeated among the common people.
  Among common people, in Akaoka, Kōchi Prefecture (now Kōnan) among other places, there is the children's song "when rain falls in good weather, it's the fox's wedding" (日和に雨が降りゃ 狐の嫁入り, hiyori ni ame ga furya, kitsune no yomeiri), and it is said that an actual fox's wedding precession was seen on a day of a sunshower.
  Akira Kurosawa showed the Kitsune no yomeiri in his film Dreams (1990 film), where Sunshine Through The Rain is the first scene.
  There was also a song made called "The Fox's Wedding"/"狐の嫁入り" by Japanese music producer -MASA Works DESIGN- featuring the voicebanks of Vocaloid's Hatsune Miku and GUMI. The song is part of a series called "The Story of the Kitsune and the Demon"/"狐と鬼の話" (Also referred to as The Onibi series) which tell the stories of two families and the curse placed on the daughter of one family after the Kitsune, the daughter of the other family, was kidnapped, tortured and murdered by the mother of the former's family.
caption: "Shūgen Kitsune no Mukoiri." It is determined to be a recent era work, but its time of creation and its creator is unknown.
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