The fox behind the shrine office.
In the “Fox Den” of the Kamidana app lives a small white fox. This is the quiet story of how it came to be, how it spends its days, and why it stays close to your wishes and worries.
The birth of the fox
It happened on the day of a local festival.
A small mikoshi — a portable shrine — was being carried into the grounds of an Inari shrine by the shrine parishioners from town.
They passed under the red torii gates along the stone path and were supposed to walk straight toward the main hall. But on that day, for some reason, the mikoshi began to drift little by little toward the side of the path.
Without stopping, it moved off course until one of the carriers was finally crushed between the mikoshi and a stone fox statue that stood ahead of them.
Pressed hard between the heavy stone statue and the wooden pole of the mikoshi, their body felt as if it would be crushed. In pain, they cried out — and at that very moment, the stone pedestal shook, and the fox statue toppled to the ground.
The impact broke off the statue’s long snout, and at the same time, a small round white animal popped out from within.
That animal was a white fox — but without a long nose like the statue had.
Everyone present trembled, frightened by the disaster they had brought about. At the same time, they decided to let the fox stay in the shrine office, to recover there until it could return to its original form.
The fox’s daily life
Living in the shrine office, the fox neither rages nor sinks into sadness. It simply spends its days, one by one.
Sometimes it enjoys the modern appliances people bring in — making its little corner more comfortable. On some nights, it drops by a secret café where animals gather. In warmer seasons, it picks flowers in bloom and quietly shows them to others. When given food, it eats with simple, honest delight.
It doesn’t only laze around. At a set time each day, the fox studies in silence. As the messenger of a deity of commerce, it works hard to learn how to help grant people’s wishes — even though, for now, it is still in recovery and cannot go out to fulfill them in person.
Yet this fox is not just endlessly positive and cheerful. Just before dawn, it sometimes thinks deeply about what its own existence means, gazing up at the sky in quiet reflection.
Like the moon that waxes and wanes, almost no one is full like a perfect full moon all the time — and the fox is no exception.
Kamidana app and the fox
In the app’s “Fox Den,” this fox is always there. In that back room, you can receive bells and amulets, and you can offer them to the fox as small gifts.
When you feel troubled, worn out, or quietly hurting inside,
may the presence of this fox gently say, “It’s okay,” and give you a small nudge to take one step forward again.