Gumiho

The provided sources identify the gumiho as a legendary creature within Korean legend and as part of a broader East Asian family of multi‑tailed foxes (analogous to the Chinese jiuweihu and the Japanese kitsune). The sources do not supply a detailed traditional cosmogonic origin, creation myth, or genealogical account for the gumiho; they place it within folktale cycles of Korea and East Asia without further origin narrative in the supplied material.

Sources characterize the gumiho by the core identifying trait of multiple tails, commonly rendered in the summaries as 'nine‑tailed' (one modern novel blurb even uses the hyperbolic phrase 'nine‑thousand‑tailed'). The gumiho is described in the available material as capable of adopting human form, most often appearing disguised as a woman in modern fictional usage. No further traditional physical details (exact number of tails beyond the nine motif, size, clothing, facial features) are supplied in the provided excerpts.

In the provided material the gumiho is reported primarily as a shapeshifting fox‑being able to appear as a woman. The Wikipedia summary situates it among regional nine‑tailed fox figures that commonly engage with humans in ambiguous or potentially dangerous ways; however, specific folkloric powers (for example, particular methods of harming humans, longevity mechanics, or a quest to become human) are not documented in the supplied sources. A modern fiction source (a novel blurb) uses the gumiho motif to suggest a potential causal link to human disappearances and portrays a woman rumored to be a gumiho as a suspect in missing‑persons cases; that depiction is explicitly a narrative use of the motif in contemporary fiction rather than an ethnographic account of traditional abilities.