In Japan, a fox’s wedding–kitsune no yomeiri–is the term for when rain falls while the sun is shining. It is a sign that somewhere nearby, foxes are holding a wedding ceremony. The rain makes people stay indoors, and the foxes can have their wedding unobserved by human eyes.

The Fox’s Wedding is a fully illustrated compendium of Japanese folklore, with over one hundred entries covering a wide range of ghosts, monsters, and spirits. Every entry in the book is translated and adapted by me from Japanese sources, and many of the stories and creatures in it have never appeared in English before.

As the name suggests, the book features a large number of foxes–kitsune in Japanese. One fifth of the book is dedicated solely to kitsune folklore, detailing the different types of kitsune, what kind of magic they do and how they do it, their society structure and power ranks, and a whole bunch of kitsune legends from across Japan.

But The Fox’s Wedding does not feature only kitsune! The rest of the book is filled with a great variety of Japanese ghosts, monsters, and demons. There are horrific tales of murder ending in supernatural vengeance, adorable animal yokai that you’ll want to keep as pets, evil ghosts in search of victims, man-eating beasts, beast-eating men, demon priests, evil trees, haunted chickens, ghostly vegetables, vampires, babies, giants, and more!

This was my first purchase from Matthew Myer, but I’ve been enjoying his art and reading about the different yokai, in particular the different types of Kitsune. The book also came with a companion book mark which is perfectly paired with this book.

If you missed the Kickstarter Campaign you can buy the book online.