Year of the Goat
未 hitsuji · Japanese 羊 · sign 8 of 12
The eighth sign is 未, read hitsuji, and English sources cannot agree whether it is the Goat, the Sheep or the Ram. Japanese uses 羊 — sheep — and Chinese sources are genuinely ambiguous, because the original character covers both animals.
Traditional characterisation: gentle, artistic, uncomfortable with conflict. There is a strain of Japanese folk belief that treats hitsuji years as unlucky for daughters, though it never had anything like the force of the Fire Horse superstition and has largely faded.
Years of the Goat
Each year page gives the exact date the zodiac year began, the element that goes with it, and what it means if you were born in the weeks before that date.
The character readings above are traditional characterisations with a long history, not predictions. The arithmetic on this page — which animal, which element, which date the year turns — is exact and checkable. What the tradition makes of it is culture, and we report it as culture.