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Hồ ly tinh (Vietnamese: 狐狸精) also known as Hồ tiên (狐仙), Hồ ly (狐狸), Hồ tinh (狐精), Hồ yêu (狐妖), Yêu hồ (妖狐) or Cáo chín đuôi (Vietnamese: ), Cáo tinh (精) is a nine-tailed fox in Vietnamese mythology. They do not have a specific personality, some stories tell about them harming people but along with them are stories about them helping people.
According to a quite famous version, hồ ly tinh are fox that has the ability to cultivate to be able to transform and have magic, if they practice for a hundred years, then they will have three tails and are called Yêu hồ or Tam vĩ yêu hồ (Three-tails demon fox), cultivate until after 1000 years, it changed to Lục vĩ ma hồ (Six-tailed ghost fox). And so on when he reached the realm of 9-tails, Cửu vĩ hồ (九尾狐) or Cửu vĩ thiên hồ (Nine-tailed celestial fox) they can turn into humans each tail is a life of them. To kill a fox, you must cut off its tail first.
In the book Lĩnh Nam chích quái, the Hồ ly tinh (or Hồ tinh) is also mentioned with the image of an animal that causes harm to good people, then killed by Lạc Long Quân to eliminate harm to the people. West Lake is the tomb where the nine-tailed fox is buried. The story goes that:
In Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư, it is recorded that Emperor Lê Thái Tổ was once saved by a hồ ly tinh. It was when he was hiding from the Ming army in Lam Sơn, he was being pursued closely, suddenly at that time he saw a girl in a white dress floating in the river, he buried the girl well and hid again. Until the Ming army almost found out, there was a white fox running out of nowhere, causing the Ming army to change direction. Lê Thái Tổ thought that it was the girl who saved him, later he named her the guardian god of the country and made a statue of a girl with half a body of a nine-tailed fox, called Hồ ly phu nhân (狐狸夫人), Hộ quốc phu nhân (護國夫人) or Hộ quốc hồ thần (護國狐神).[1]
At the end of the 18th century, the scholar Phạm Đình Hổ described the statue of Hộ Quốc phu nhân in his work Vũ Trung tùy bút as follows: " ...That statue has a human head and the body of a hồ ly, very beautiful figure, the shape of a young girl, her hair in a bun and brooch."[2]
In some regions in central and southern Vietnam, people worship the Hồ Ly Cửu Vĩ tiên nương (狐狸九尾仙娘, Nine-tailed fox cultivates to become a tiên) and Phấn Nhĩ Quỷ Vương tiên nương (奮茸鬼王仙娘, Bird ruffled feathers, cultivated to become a king, guarded the demon realm).[3] They are two sisters and are the patron gods of the people.[4] Legend in the Danang and Khánh Hòa areas says that: