ONIBI AND KITSUNEBI 鬼火 and 狐火
Pronunciation: OH-nee-bee and KEY-tsoo-nay-bee
Translation: Demon Fires and Fox Fires
Onibi are also known as: Chōchinbi (提灯火), lantern fire; Tenbi (天火), heaven fires; as well as various other regional names
Kitsunebi are also known as: Hitobosu or Hitomoshi (火点し), fire lighting; Rinka (燐火), phosphorus fire; these occurrences, too, have many varying local names
Overview
The onibi and the kitsunebi are similar—but ultimately different—otherworldly phenomena that appear as ghostly lights in the night sky. They can manifest as a single ethereal blue candlelight floating in a graveyard on a hot summer night, or a winding procession of red and orange paper-lantern-looking lights, flickering on a hillside where no roads or people are known to exist.
When talking about these mysterious ghostly illuminations, confusion and overlap reign supreme, at times even confounding folklorists and scholars. This is mostly due to local disparities and differing stories through time. Keeping that in mind, there are two names that stand out: The onibi (demon fires) and kitsunebi (fox fires). Let’s see if we can learn the distinctions between the two.
Background and Popular Stories
Here’s what we know about kitsunebi: They were depicted in Utagawa Hiroshige’s (1797–1858) woodblock print New Year’s Eve Foxfires at the Changing Tree. The image is of a legend that says on the last day of every year, foxes from all over the Kantō area (which consists of seven prefectures: Gunma, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Saitama, Tokyo, Chiba, and Kanagawa) headed to Ōji Inari Shrine (王子稲荷神社) in Tokyo. On the way, they always stopped under the same large enoki (hackberry) tree to change into their formal attire before continuing on to the shrine, where they would pay their respects to the head Inari god (for more on Inari, see the Kitsune entry). This nocturnal parade of foxes was a spectacular sight, even when viewed from afar. What made it truly captivating was that all the animals in attendance exhaled small balls of fire that burned sublimely in front of their mouths. Observant farmers used to watch and count these kitsunebi, using the number as an indicator to forecast the prosperity of the upcoming year’s harvests. The higher the number, the better the harvest.
There are a couple of other theories about how foxes became able to produce these ghostly glowing wisps. One is that foxes of yore could only shape-shift into people under certain circumstances. Once a kitsune had reached the age of either fifty or one hundred (different stories give different ages), they could place a human skull on their head and bow to the Big Dipper. If they managed this without the skull falling off, they were then able to transform. A related belief suggests they did this ritual with a human bone clenched in their teeth and that the bone emitted that spectral light called a kitsunebi.
A second sillier theory is that kitsune caused the ghostly flames by smacking their tails against the ground. This long association between foxes and fire led naturally to the suspicion that foxes started real fires (see the following story).
Onibi, or demon fires, are somewhat different. These, too, are eerie lights at night, but they derive from the corpses of both people and animals. The light is usually blue, but red or orange (like a kitsunebi) is sometimes reported. One of the oldest mentions of the onibi is recorded in the Wakan Sansai Zue (和漢三才図会), or Illustrated Sino-Japanese Encyclopedia (1712). This book states that if someone ran across several of these blue lights floating 3–6 feet (1–2 meters) above the ground, they would have their soul sucked out.
Onibi tend to prefer marshy land, forests, and graveyards. Because of the latter, there’s the opinion that the onibi lights have nothing to do with fire at all but are created from the trace amounts of phosphorus (or perhaps phosphine or hydrogen sulfide) that is produced from decaying corpses. The fact that they seem to move around is just an optical illusion.
Onibi include so many types of luminescent orbs, the term itself has been used to collectively refer to kitsunebi, hitodama (see the sidebar), and other will-o’-the-wisps.
There are folktales that illustrate the myth that foxes start fires. Consider, for example, the story of a samurai who served a provincial governor of Kai Province (present-day Yamanashi Prefecture). One evening, this samurai left the governor’s office, got on his horse, and headed home like he always did. Only this time, when he was about halfway there, he encountered a fox.
The samurai chased the animal down, drew his bow, and shot it in the side with an arrow. The fox yelped in pain and disappeared into the brush. The samurai continued on his way, but a few minutes later saw the same fox again, limping in front of him. Ready to finish it off, the samurai unslung his bow, but the animal ducked away into the tall grass and vanished.
At last, when the samurai was almost home, he spotted the fox for a third time. But something was different. It was running toward his house, carrying a mouthful of fire. The samurai spurred on his horse. Still too far away to do anything, he helplessly watched as the fox transformed into a human and set his home ablaze. Riding his horse at full speed, the samurai aimed another arrow at the beast. But before he could shoot, the vulpine arsonist had returned back into a fox and raced away. That night the samurai’s house burned to the ground, and he learned a valuable lesson: Don’t mess with foxes.
In Modern Stories
The manga Shaman King features a red fireball that acts as the character named Millie’s Guardian Ghost. Demonstrating the confusion about different kinds of mysterious glowing orbs, this one is called an onibi, but inside the fire is the face of a fox. Another beautifully illustrated manga by the French duo Atelier Sentô is titled Onibi: Diary of a Yokai Ghost Hunter.