Cunning, tricksy and not to be trusted? Five Foxes from Folklore tell their side of the story... 🦊 💬
Welcome to LOST IN FOLKLORE, where I take a lighthearted look at elements of folk stories, fairy tales, myths and monsters. If you’ve arrived here by accident and want to unsubscribe, please do. It helps make sure everyone on this quest wants to be here.
Oh, I did mention it’s a quest, right? Umm…forget I said anything.
Just watch out for the man-eating fox.
The Fox is a favourite of folklore, often depicted as having wily, deceitful qualities. But is it true?
Here, five foxes of folklore tell their side of the story…
Reynard the Fox
Welcome, welcome. I see you are a two legged creature? That’s acceptable, I’m an equal opportunities trickster.
What’s that you say? I’m rather bold about it? Well why not? I’m the most famous trickster in medieval European folklore! You should have seen me in the 12th to the 17th centuries. I was as popular as Taylor Swift and twice as ingenious.
Now, some may say that I made fools of people but all I can say is, they provided me with the material.
Take the most famous of my tales, ‘Renart the Fox and the Wolf Isengrim’. Isengrim was my arch enemy, or I was his at least. What he lacked in wit and brains he made up for in brawn and thick-headedness. He was forever falling for my japes and every time he did, he just got more and more vexed. What mirth!
This particular time I saw him trudging through the snow looking weak and hungry. Isengrim! I cried out. You look terrible. But fear not, I know a secret method to catching as much fish as you could ever want.
Now, this fellow should know well not to trust a word I say, but as aforementioned, he never was the sharpest sword in the armory. So when I told him to go to a hole in the ice and lower his tail in, which would draw the fish, he quickly obeyed!
We must have been there for hours, me spinning tales of the delicious fish meal he was in for, if he would only be patient. I waited until the ice had frozen around his tail and trapped his behind before bursting into laughter. Then, as he howled with anger and frustration, I took my leave with a smile.
He got free eventually but not without losing some of his tail, alas.
And unlike Aesop’s Fox, who you will hear from below, I didn't do it for food.
I did it because I could.
Oh before you go…I wouldn't tell just anyone this, but I happen to know of the location of a hoard of gold and jewels and I need someone resourceful and smart to help me reach it, for a 50/50 split.
What do you say?
The Teumessian Fox
“HELLOOOO down there. Yes, they said you wanted to ask me something.
How did I get all the way up here? Well, there’s a tale!
There I was in Greece, minding my own business, when I was summoned by the gods (which one I’m not sure but I think it was Dionysus) and ordered to punish the people of Thebes.
When you want to settle a score, what’s better than a giant man-eating fox?
What did the people of Thebes do to deserve this terror? Again, details are sketchy. I just did what was demanded of me because, massive fox or no, mythology has proven that it does not do to piss off the gods.
So down I go, preying on livestock, maybe eating the odd child and generally just terrorising the place with my magnificent and terrible presence, knowing all the while that I was in no danger. Oh, didn't I mention? It was my destiny never to be caught. Dastardly move on the part of the gods, eh?
Except. Creon, King of Thebes, commanded the warrior Amphitryon (grandson of Perseus) to destroy me. After a few failed attempts the hero, clearly taking after his grandfather, came up with a rather clever solution. He set Laelaps on my trail - Laelaps being a magical hound gifted to the mortals by the gods; a dog that was destined to catch everything it chased.
I can’t be caught and he can’t not catch me. What a pickle.
Since Zeus abhors a fate-based paradox, he decided to step in which is never good news. Sure enough, just as I was about to bite the head off another tasty hen - POW - he turned both me and Laelaps into stone and placed us in the heavens!
And that’s how we became the constellations known as Canis Minor (me) and Canis Major (Laelaps), and since I rise in the winter sky an hour before Laelaps he’s still chasing me to this day. Ironic really.
I don’t mind too much. It’s nice up here. Peaceful. And though I am quite peckish, don’t you worry. I have my eye on the Running Chicken Nebula. One day that sucker is going to make a tasty meal. Okay, yes, we are in different parts of the Milky Way galaxy and separated by thousands of light-years, but, really, what else do I have but time?
Tamamo-no-Mae - the Kitsune
Konnichiwa. Enchanted to meet you.
You’ve heard of me? No? Pah. What on earth do they teach people these days?
I am Tamamo-no-Mae, a Kitsune, the most famous in all of Japan. This is my story.
I was a courtesan under the Emperor Konoe, who ruled from 1142 to 1155, and I was admired as the most beautiful woman in the land. People would remark that I always smelled wonderful and my clothes were never dirty or wrinkled. You noticed that, yes? I thought you did.
Not only was I beautiful but I was wise, too. At twenty, I knew far more than perhaps a girl of my age should. They would test me with questions and I would answer every one. Oh yes, they all adored me! And, of course, very soon the Emperor Konoe fell in love with me.
It was all going so well.
But then my beloved became ill. He visited priests and fortune-tellers but no-one could tell him why he was ailing. Until that blasted astrologer told him that I was an evil Kitsune, a sorceress, and the cause of his suffering!
Well, ok, yes, it was me. But I only did it because that throne should have been mine. I deserved it more than him! I was smarter, more charismatic, more attractive, more powerful, better in every way. The fact that I was also an ageless nine-tailed fox is beside the point.
Once my secret had been exposed, I slipped away silently, the way only we foxes can. But they hunted me and I knew in my fox heart that I would eventually be caught. I appeared to one of the warriors, Miura-no-suke, in a dream, begging him to save my life. But the brute refused! And so, the next day they found me and, with a magical arrow, killed me.
Then they trapped my spirit in the Sessho-seki (Killing Stone) which I haunted for many centuries. It was said that anyone who came into contact with the Sessho-seki would die.
But fate has a sense of humour. After aeons held captive, three years ago, the stone mysteriously split and I was released!
Now I am free, to hatch new plans. So, if you happen to hear about a powerful man, who meets a beautiful woman possessing vulpine grace and sly intelligence, who always smells wonderful and whose clothes are impeccable, well, watch out.
She might just bite.
Aesop’s Fox
Hello there, I’m the Fox. I suppose you think you know me, but actually, I get a bad rap in Aesop’s fables. I’m a trickster, he suggests. Sly. Deceitful. Which is pretty rich considering no-one even knows who this dude really is.
There’s one fable called The Fox and the Crow where I do not come off in a good light. I was wandering one morning, nose in the air for any promising aromas, and I saw Crow up in the tree. I could tell she had a tasty hunk of cheese in her beak, and stingy as ever, she wasn't for sharing. And yes, maybe I did flatter her a bit, telling her how beautiful her voice was, and how, if she’d just sing just one song I knew that I’d have to hail her Queen of Birds.
Is it my fault that she’s so vain?
Long story short, she opened her beak to sing, out fell the cheese and I got my breakfast.
(She got her own back after plotting with Stork, but that’s another story.)
Now we all know how much Aesop likes to spin his little stories into moral lessons, so he had this one pegged as a warning against the dangers of flattery and gullibility.
But really it’s just a story about how much I love cheese.
The Firefox
Hello! So nice to meet you. Yes, I am rather jolly. Were the others not? Oh. Well, I’m a different kind of fox.
I am the Firefox, or Tulikettu, known from Finnish folklore. By day my fur is black, but it twinkles with fire at night. Which is, as I’m sure you’ll agree, a little unusual. Oh, you think it’s beautiful? How kind.
There is only one of me and my hide is very precious. Because of this Finnish hunters dream of catching me as it would make them rich for the rest of their lives. But if they did catch me, that would be a tragedy. Because, and I don’t mean to boast here, I’m the one who creates the aurora borealis, the northern lights.
Yes! I do it by running so fast over the snow, my fiery tail brushes the branches and trees and mountains and creates the sparks that give colours to the sky. Another way I do it is I sweep snowflakes up into a flurry and when they catch the moonlight, they make that magnificent, ethereal light show.
It’s great fun!
And in fact, the Finnish name for the aurora borealis is Revontulet, which is drawn from the poetic name for a fox and for fires. So it translates as ‘fox fires.’ Quite the honour.
I do have to stay very secret. Hardly anyone has ever seen me, so you are quite lucky!
Okay, I must be off now, back to Finland. The humans are depending on me, you see, and I hate to see their sad little faces when I can’t perform my magic.
If the hunters pass, can you tell them I went the other way?
Thanks ever so much. Oh, and if you ever visit Finland to see the northern lights, do be sure to let me know. I’ll put on a special show, just for you.
So there you have it, Five Foxes of Folklore! If you enjoy my work please like and share, so we can expand this gang of witty misfits, all the better to succeed in our quest to make life magical again.
You might also enjoy popular posts such as this Winter Solstice Feast, Five Weird Christmas Myths and Five Spooky Powers I’d Kill For
Ditto my novels, The Gods of Love and The Love Delusion which are chock full of mythology and sarcasm, just like I am. You can find them at Blackwells which offers FREE national and international shipping. Or on Amazon by clicking the links above or the image below ❤️🏹🖤
Until next time. Byeeeeee!
This is awesome 🦊
Revontulet is just begging to be a name in my horror/fantasy!