World and Lore / Kyoto mystery

The Fox's Folly

Long, long ago, there lived, in the environs of a temple, a hunter who was exceptionally skilled at catching foxes. One day, there appeared an especially crafty fox, who the hunter could not capture despite all of his best efforts and well-laid traps. Grieved by the hunter's relentless pursuit of him and his comrades, the fox sought the aid of a monk at the temple, asking him to speak to the hunter on his behalf. However, the monk rebuked him, saying, "If you are wise enough to evade his traps, you can speak to the man yourself." The fox then began to explain how, in his former life, he had been a monastic scholar who had devoted himself to the pursuit of knowledge at the expense of cultivating virtue. As a consequence, after he died, he had been reborn in the form of a fox. Taking pity on the poor creature, the monk promised to speak to the hunter the very next day. However, by then it was too late, for the hunter had managed to catch and kill the crafty fox. It seems the fox had let its guard down, believing that he was now safely under the monk's protection, and had walked straight into the hunter's trap. In the end, the fox had tried to rely on knowledge and reason, and had thus met a sorry end. Sadly even being reborn as a fox seemed to have taught him nothing.