KUZUNOHA, a japanese legend.
"A young nobleman, Abe no Yasuna (安倍 保名), is on his way to visit a
shrine in Shinoda, in Settsu Province, when he encounters a young
military commissioner who is hunting foxes in order to obtain their
livers for use as medicine. Yasuna battles the hunter, sustaining
several wounds, and sets free the white fox he had trapped.
Later, a beautiful woman named Kuzunoha helps Yasuna to return to
his home. She is the fox he saved, adopting human form in order to tend
to his wounds. He falls in love with her and they marry. She bears him a
child, Seimei, who proves prodigiously clever. Kuzunoha realizes that
her son has inherited part of her supernatural power.
Several years later, while Kuzunoha is viewing some chrysanthemums,
her son catches sight of the tip of her tail. Her true nature revealed,
Kuzunoha prepares to return to her life in the wild. She leaves behind a
farewell poem, asking her husband Yasuna to come to see her in Shinoda
Forest.
Yasuna and his son search for Kuzunoha, and eventually she appears
to them as a fox. Revealing that she is the kami, or spirit, of Shinoda
Shrine, she gives her son Seimei a gift, allowing him to understand the
language of animals."
In Izumi there is a Kuzunoha Inari shrine, said to be built upon the
place at which Kuzunoha departed, leaving her farewell poem on a silk
screen.
The poem itself has become famous:
"If you love me, darling, come and see me. / You will find me yonder
in the great wood / Of Shinoda of Izumi Province where the leaves / Of
arrowroots always rustle in pensive mood."
And this is my illustrations:
