"Foxfires" in Old Edo – A Nocturnal Gathering of Kitsune in Hiroshige’s Ukiyo-e
On a winter’s night in the Ōji district…
On a frosty, starless night on the outskirts of Edo, beneath a solitary enoki tree with bare, trembling branches, foxes gather. Their bodies gleam brightly in the darkness, like sparks from the spirit world, and their breaths ignite the air with a bluish glow of fire—kitsunebi (狐火 – “fox fires” or “foxfires”). It is no coincidence—the scene captures New Year’s Eve, a moment of passage between the old and the new, the known and the unknown, the world of humans and the realm of the kami. Hiroshige, master of contemplation and landscapes of the soul, captured more than myth—he captured a moment that quivers like a bowstring stretched between what was and what is yet to come. This is not an image to be looked at—it is one to be felt. The viewer feels as though they themselves have become one of the shadows beneath the tree, among the foxes, listening to the whispers of the wind and the crackling of flames from that other world of old Japan.
In the woodblock print “Foxfires on New Year’s Eve at the Changing Tree in Ōji” (Jap. 王子装束ゑの木大晦日の狐火), Hiroshige leaves behind the world of documentation and the real districts of Edo to immerse himself in legend—and perhaps, in what is most real. For here are the foxes—symbolic, shape-shifting, cunning, and sacred—preparing to visit the shrine of Inari, changing their forms beneath the “Changing Tree,” evoking echoes of ritual and theatrical gesture. In Edo-period Japan, the worlds of gods, humans, and spirits were not separate—they coexisted, sharing the same space, time of day, even the same air. Hiroshige is not merely retelling a myth—he is translating it into the language of light and composition, creating a sacred page from a non-existent calendar in which magic was not an escape from everyday life but an integral part of it.
Within this scene of silence and tension lies an entire cosmos. It is more than folklore—it is a story of cycles, of transformation, of the need to journey into the unknown with trust that the foxfires—like lanterns of the soul—will show us the way. Winter as an inner state, the fox as a metaphor for our ability to adapt, fire as memory and intention, and night as the moment in which not only the world, but we ourselves, can be reshaped. Hiroshige leaves us something precious: an image that is like a gate. Step through it carefully. Beyond it begins a journey not only into the depths of art, but into Japan itself—its ancient self, its spiritual self, the self still hidden among the snow and shadows.
王子装束ゑの木大晦日の狐火
Ōji shōzoku e no ki ōmisoka no kitsunebi
Foxfires on New Year’s Eve at the Changing Tree in Ōji
– Utagawa Hiroshige (Andō Tokutarō),
1857, Edo,
from the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo
The woodblock print “Foxfires on New Year’s Eve at the Changing Tree in Ōji” (Jap. 王子装束ゑの木大晦日の狐火, Eng. Foxfires on New Year’s Eve at the Changing Tree, Ōji), created by Utagawa Hiroshige in 1857, is part of his monumental series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Meisho Edo Hyakkei). This series, considered the artist’s final great work, consists of 119 prints and depicts the city of Edo from landscape, cultural, and often spiritual perspectives. The print discussed here breaks away from the realistic convention of the cycle—it presents not a document, but a legend, a myth, a metaphor. Created in a vertical format (ōban tate-e), it is full of subtle formal and symbolic tensions, and skillfully uses compositional depth to build mood and narrative.
At first glance, we see a winter landscape—deep night covers everything in a thick layer of blues, indigos, and muted greens. The color palette is cool, restrained, almost monochromatic, which only strengthens the contrast with what truly draws the eye: the foxes and their light. At the center of the composition, like an ancient boundary pillar, rises a mighty, leafless enoki tree (ゑの木, Chinese hackberry), whose spreading branches mark the vertical space and organize the scene. This is the very tree known as the “Changing Tree” (Shōzoku no enoki)—a place where, according to folk tales, foxes would change form and don ritual garments before setting off for the Inari shrine.
At the foot of the tree, dozens of foxes gather—they are not comic or fairy-tale characters. Hiroshige portrays them with solemnity and respect. Their bodies, glowing in pale light, possess an almost epic quality; they are like dignified, yet living statues—slightly bowed, focused, clearly engaged in a ritual. Some move toward the shrine, others pause in contemplation, still others seem to silently communicate something invisible to one another. But what defines this scene most is the light of the kitsunebi—the mysterious fire that emanates from the foxes. It is a pale yellow-white, the color of the moon, and it seems not only to illuminate the space but to structure it.
In the background, beyond the field and the softly winding paths, one can glimpse a hill with the gently lit Inari shrine—barely visible, yet essential, for it is the goal of this quiet procession. Straw stacks scattered across the fields reinforce the wintry, agricultural context of the scene—reminding us that foxes, as messengers of Inari Ōkami, are connected to the rhythm of crops, fertility, and prosperity (more on kitsune can be found here: Japanese Kitsune – Demonic and Sacred Foxes Manipulating the Lives of Unaware Humans). Over the entire scene hovers an aura of mist and stillness—there is no drama here, only a calm that recalls nō theatre, where every gesture, every moment of silence is saturated with meaning.
What is most intriguing are the unreal elements woven into the space with such finesse that we almost fail to notice them. Perhaps this is the greatest strength of the work—that the spiritual world is so embedded in the natural one that it seems to be an actual part of nature. The supernatural merges with the physical—not ostentatiously, but in a way that feels natural, inevitable. Hiroshige does not separate the divine from the everyday—instead, he suggests that the latter contains the former, if only we look attentively. This is not a map-based landscape—it is the topography of myth, a place that is both real and unreal, that could exist only on the night when the old year ends and the new one has yet to begin.
Interpretation of the Image
The Symbolism of the Fox (Kitsune)
Hiroshige’s image, though a landscape of the city of Edo, simultaneously transcends the boundaries of space and time—it seems to enchant this magical moment, rendering the scene universal, archetypal. We are no longer merely observers of the scene—we are invited into a world of symbols, archetypes, and spiritual geometry, in which every animal, plant, and light source contributes to the composition. At the heart of this symbolic landscape is the kitsune—the fox—one of the most complex and multifaceted creatures in Japanese folklore. In this woodblock print, the fox is not a decorative motif or a narrative figure. It belongs to a different order—it is a messenger between worlds, a being that does not so much live among humans as it haunts their reality like a dream, a premonition, or a warning.
In Japanese tradition, foxes are primarily associated with Inari Ōkami (稲荷大神)—the deity of rice, fertility, abundance, commerce, and prosperity. From the Heian period (794–1185) to the present day, Inari remains one of the most widely venerated kami in Japan—the number of shrines dedicated to him is estimated at over 30,000. Nearly all of them are guarded by stone fox statues—these are not "sacred animals" in the Western sense, but true divine messengers (shinshō), endowed with the power to cross the boundary between the material and the spiritual. In this sense, the fox in Hiroshige’s print is not just an aesthetic element—it is a ritual presence, evoking the entire sphere of Inari worship: from prayers for good harvests to daily offerings of sake and rice made by farmers.
But the kitsune is not a one-dimensional figure. It is a shape-shifting spiritual being (変化, henge), capable of assuming human form—most often that of a young woman—and entering into complex relationships with humans: emotional, erotic, metaphysical. Classic tales from the Edo period abound with stories of fox-women who marry a man, bear him a child, only to vanish afterward, leaving behind nothing but the memory of something supernatural. In such narratives, the kitsune is a figure of longing—for what is elusive and perfect—but also a warning against illusion: beauty may be a deception, and love—a mask. In this sense, the fox symbolizes a liminal phenomenon—between the known and the unknown, light and shadow, desire and fear.
It is no coincidence that in many legends foxes appear at night, in the mist, at crossroads—anywhere reality becomes uncertain and prone to the mischief of imagination. Kitsunebi—the mysterious foxfires—seen in Hiroshige’s woodblock print, are the materialization of this spiritual presence. They are meant to guide, but also to mislead; to illuminate the path, but not reveal the destination. Their light is not warm, not human—it is light from beyond this world, inward, akin to a flash of intuition or a sudden awakening (note that this is the same color the moon often takes in the ukiyo-e tradition—for example, in Kuniyoshi’s One Hundred Aspects of the Moon).
In Japanese culture, foxes exist in many parallel registers—from yōkai (demonic spirits), through kami (divine messengers), to morally ambiguous beings that defy human categories of good and evil. In the syncretic Buddhism of the Edo period, the fox could be both an illusion (māyā) and an embodiment of compassion (karuṇā)—depending on whether one viewed the world superficially or deeply. In Hiroshige’s vision, the kitsune does not mock, seduce, or destroy—it participates in something greater: in a cosmic ritual of passage, a New Year’s mystery, an ancient dance of light and darkness. Looking at the fox is like looking into oneself—and asking: what in me is ready to transform?
The Enoki Tree – Axis Mundi
At the very center of Hiroshige’s composition stands the enoki tree—bare, monumental, spread wide like an ancient hand pointing toward the sky. This is no ordinary tree. In the context of the artwork, it becomes what Mircea Eliade would call the axis mundi—the world axis, a vertical line that connects the earthly, heavenly, and subterranean realms. In traditional cultures, the great sacred tree was more than a form of life—it was the axis of all things, the pivot around which the rhythm of existence revolved. In Hiroshige’s print, the enoki is not background—it is the spiritual center of the action, the place of transformation, around which the foxes gather like flames around a hearth of meaning.
According to Japanese legend, it was beneath this very tree, known as Shōzoku no enoki—the “Changing Tree”—that foxes would alter their appearance: donning ritual garments, assuming human or divine forms, before setting off in procession to the shrine of Inari. This transformation was not merely aesthetic. It was a ritual passage between identities, a symbolic shedding of an old skin. On New Year’s Eve—when the past has not yet ended and the future has not yet begun—the tree becomes a gate through which one may enter something new. To leave behind the skin of one’s old life.
In its silent presence, Hiroshige also captured the motif of eternal return. In a winter landscape, when all seems dead, the foxes gather to light fire, to change, to be reborn. It is a natural metaphor for cyclicality—of life that departs only to return; of identity that dies only to be born again. Like trees shedding leaves, like a spirit that traverses the wheel of reincarnation—so too may a person, if attentive, rediscover themselves anew, beneath this very tree.
What’s more, this tree truly existed—and had a name. Shōzoku no enoki, or the “Changing Tree,” once grew in the Ōji district in the northern part of old Edo (modern-day Tokyo), near one of the most important shrines dedicated to Inari Ōkami. The place was shrouded in legend: it was believed that on New Year’s Eve, foxes from all over Japan would gather there to change their form beneath the tree, don ceremonial robes, and make their way in procession to the shrine. The tree became so deeply tied to local tradition and ritual that it was not just an element of folklore, but a marker on the spiritual map of Edo. Sadly, during the Shōwa period, in the 20th century, the tree was cut down—most likely during the expansion of railway infrastructure. Soon after, as local stories tell, misfortune befell the area, interpreted by residents as punishment for violating the spiritual order. In a gesture of atonement, new enoki trees were planted and a new shrine—Shōzoku Inari-jinja—was built to preserve the memory of that ancient place of transition. Today, every December 31st, a vibrant Fox Parade is held there, re-enacting the legendary march of spirits—and breathing life back into a symbol that has not vanished, but only transformed.
New Year’s Eve – A Moment Between Worlds
There is no time more liminal than the final night of the year. It no longer belongs to the old time, yet it does not yet belong to the new. It is a suspension, a space of transition, what anthropology calls a liminal space—an in-between zone where things and beings lack fixed form, and meanings become fluid. Hiroshige captured precisely this state—a night that is not quite night, but a shadow between two years, a moment when sanctity slips into everyday life like a fox’s shadow between tall grasses.
In this exceptional moment, the foxes do not merely gather—they change. They put on garments that belong not to their world, but to the human or divine. This is not merely a gesture—it is a spiritual act. The costume becomes a symbol of decision: I abandon my former form to assume a new mission, a new responsibility. In the Inari tradition, it was said that foxes received their divine orders for the coming year on this night. It is as if an entire alternate reality—not only spiritual but also moral—was updated once a year, in this single, dreamlike hour. Is this not the same in our human New Year’s Eve? In our resolutions, intentions, hopes, which may not endure, but in that moment are sincere?
This scene, though set in Edo Japan, evokes universal archetypes: the Ouroboros, the snake devouring its own tail, eternal return, the moment when end becomes beginning. Hiroshige does not merely show this—he translates it into the language of image: darkness and light, animality and spirituality, still life and soul fire. And perhaps that is the message of this night: that the world does not begin or end—it circles, changing only its form. And we, like the foxes beneath the tree, must only decide: what costume will we wear? And where will we go next?
Hiroshige as Mystic
In Foxfires at the Enoki Tree, Hiroshige accomplishes something rare in his oeuvre: he abandons the documentary depiction of the world to which we’ve grown accustomed in his landscapes of Edo, and steps into the realm of imagination, myth, and inner vision. He is no longer interested in the city’s topography, nor does he reconstruct a view one might find on a map or admire from a bridge. Instead, he opens a gateway to symbolic reality—a landscape that both did and did not exist. A landscape that may have once been a physical place in Ōji, but here becomes a state of consciousness, a ritual of passage, a metaphor for transformation.
Though everything appears set in a specific scene—a winter field, a shrine in the distance, foxes, a tree—the narrative that emerges from this image is timeless, elusive, saturated with the presence of something that transcends linear time and rational description. Hiroshige is not merely observing—he is meditating. He creates the image not as an illustration of a legend, but as a tool for contemplation.
In this sense, his work becomes a spiritual landscape—in which what is shown does not serve to explain the world, but to help us read ourselves. Hiroshige’s image functions like a mandala—a center of focus, a ritual of the eye. It suspends time and leads us to a place of silence, where the outer and inner worlds cease to be separate and instead become a single landscape—lived through, not explained.
The Foxes Are Still Here – Even Today
Although Hiroshige passed away in 1858 and the enoki tree was felled several decades later, the spirit of his work has not vanished—on the contrary, it has found new life in the rhythm of contemporary culture. Every year, on the night between December 31st and January 1st, the streets of the Ōji district are illuminated with foxfires and white masks—this is when the Fox Parade, or Ōji Kitsune no Gyōretsu, takes place. Hundreds of people—children, families, elders, tourists from all over the world—don fox ears, traditional kimonos, paint their faces or wear masks to take part in a living ritual that merges ancient legend with the modern need for community. It is no longer just a tribute to Inari or an act of folklore preservation—it is a manifestation of continuity, a need for spiritual ritual in the age of screens, a moment when the city breathes with memory.
As for Hiroshige himself, though he created during an era when photography was only beginning to emerge, he became an inspiration for artists who think in modern terms. From the Impressionists and Van Gogh to contemporary illustrators and visual philosophers who see in his work something more than just “pretty landscapes.” In Hiroshige’s prints, what matters is not what is seen, but what remains unseen—and can only be sensed. And that is precisely why Foxfires on New Year’s Eve still resonates: it teaches us that the most important processes take place in transition, in uncertainty, in the moment when darkness and light converge. It teaches us to accept transformation—not as something sudden and dramatic, but as the rhythm of life, which does not need noise to be true.
This image—quiet, focused, dense with meaning—reminds us that some things never age. That it is worth pausing, if only for a moment, to look at this winter landscape with foxes not as an artwork over 150 years old, but as a mirror in which our own readiness for change might be reflected.
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未開 ソビエライ
An enthusiast of Asian culture with a deep appreciation for the diverse philosophies of the world. By education, a psychologist and philologist specializing in Korean studies. At heart, a programmer (primarily for Android) and a passionate technology enthusiast, as well as a practitioner of Zen and mono no aware. In moments of tranquility, adheres to a disciplined lifestyle, firmly believing that perseverance, continuous personal growth, and dedication to one's passions are the wisest paths in life. Author of the book "Strong Women of Japan" (>>see more)
Personal motto:
"The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest." - Albert Einstein (probably)
Mike Soray
(aka Michał Sobieraj)
未開 ソビエライ
An enthusiast of Asian culture with a deep appreciation for the diverse philosophies of the world. By education, a psychologist and philologist specializing in Korean studies. At heart, a programmer (primarily for Android) and a passionate technology enthusiast, as well as a practitioner of Zen and mono no aware. In moments of tranquility, adheres to a disciplined lifestyle, firmly believing that perseverance, continuous personal growth, and dedication to one's passions are the wisest paths in life. Author of the book "Strong Women of Japan" (>>see more)
Personal motto:
"The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest." - Albert Einstein (probably)
Mike Soray
(aka Michał Sobieraj)
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