by Utagawa Hiroshige from his “One Hundred Famous Views of Edo” series.”
This is one of the most famous prints in the series, it is also one of the last. It depicts a Japanese legend that at the Shinto Oji shrine, there is an old tree (the ‘Garment Nettle Tree’) at which all the trickster fox spirits (kitsune) of that province gather once a year at night, bearing torches to light their way; at the meeting they receive their orders for the up-coming year. Interestingly, one of the two trees can still be seen.
