The Fox's Craft in Japanese Religion and Folklore

Published in 2003 by Routledge, "The Fox's Craft in Japanese Religion and Folklore" is an academic study by Michael Bathgate of the fox (kitsune) as a figure in Japanese religious life and folk narrative, with particular attention to its association with the Shinto deity Inari, one of the most widely worshipped kami in Japan. Open Library catalogs the book under foxes, Inari, and the religious aspects of animals in Japanese folklore. The book examines how the fox operates simultaneously as a trickster figure in folk tales — capable of shape-shifting into human form, often to deceive or test people — and as a sacred messenger associated with Inari shrines found throughout Japan, arguing that these seemingly contradictory roles reflect deeper patterns in how Japanese religious and folk traditions understand the boundary between the animal, human, and divine worlds.