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EntityQ10399855· pop 5· linked from 245 articles

thumb|right|160px|Fire rat depicted in Japanese woodblock print. The huoshu or huo shu (), meaning fire rat or fire mouse, is a fantastical beast in Chinese tradition.

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Encyclopedic overview

10 sections
Contents
  • Attestations
  • Early modern era
  • Early Japanese literature
  • Salamander parallel
  • Fire-laundered cloth
  • Ashless wood
  • Explanatory notes
  • References
  • Citations
  • Bibliography

thumb|right|160px|Fire rat depicted in Japanese woodblock print. The huoshu or huo shu (), meaning fire rat or fire mouse, is a fantastical beast in Chinese tradition.

The huoshu is said to dwell inside fire within incombustible trees growing in mountains in southern China. Cloth woven from its hair is said to became clean when burnt, and is thus equated with the item known as huo huan bu () or "fire-laundered cloth", which is thought in reality to have been a type of asbestos cloth.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Huoshu” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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