Yokai Night · One Hundred Famous Views of Edo · Utagawa Hiroshige, 1857
New Year's Eve Foxfires at Ōji
On New Year's Eve, the foxes gather here.
The Work
On New Year's Eve, foxes from all over the Kantō gather beneath a great nettle tree at Ōji. No. 118, the final winter view of the series.
Look Closer
Foxfires flicker across the dark field. In the deep indigo night, pale flames and white foxes glow.
The Legend
Legend says the foxes dressed in their finest here before visiting Ōji Inari, head shrine of the Inari faith in the Kantō.
The Harvest
Local farmers are said to have counted the foxfires to predict the next year's harvest.
Edo at the Time
In 1857, four years after Perry's black ships, Edo was torn over opening Japan to the world.
Culture & Values
Foxes, messengers of the Inari god, stood for good harvests and good business — tricksters, but beloved ones.
Meanwhile, in the World
The same year, Baudelaire published Les Fleurs du mal in France, and a great uprising broke out in India.
Afterward
Since 1993, people in fox masks have paraded through Ōji on New Year's Eve, recreating Hiroshige's scene.
Listen while you look
This work stays on screen for about ten minutes in the full hour of Yokai Night, with Foxfires At Oji and Foxes On New Year's Eve.
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