Foxes in popular culture

"Brer Fox Tackles Brer Tarrypin", from Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings: The Folk-Lore of the Old Plantation, by Joel Chandler Harris. Illustrations by Frederick Stuart Church and James H. Moser. 1881.

This article discusses foxes in culture.

Cultural connotations

In many cultures, the fox appears in folklore as a symbol of cunning and trickery, or as a familiar animal possessed of magic powers.

In Dogon mythology, the pale fox is the trickster god of the desert, who embodies chaos.[1][2]

The Medieval Norman adventurer Robert Guiscard was nicknamed "Robert the Fox" as well as the Resourceful, the Cunning, the Wily - underlining the identification of such qualities with foxes.

The term "foxy" in English is defined as meaning - as the obvious "having the qualities of a fox" - also "attractive" and "sexy", as well as "red-haired".[3] And "to outfox" means "to beat in a competition of wits", the synonym of "outguess", "outsmart" or "outwit".[4]

In Finnish mythology, the fox is depicted usually a cunning trickster, but seldom evil. The fox, while weaker, in the end outsmarts both the evil and voracious wolf and the strong but not-so-cunning bear. It symbolizes the victory of intelligence over both malevolence and brute strength.

There is a Tswana riddle that says that "Phokoje go tsela o dithetsenya" translated literally into Only the muddy fox lives meaning that, in a philosophical sense, only an active person who does not mind getting muddy gets to progress in life.

In early Mesopotamian mythology, the fox is one of the sacred animals of the goddess Ninhursag. The fox acts as her messenger.

Prince Hanzoku terrorized by a nine-tailed kitsune (fox spirit). Print by Utagawa Kuniyoshi, 19th century.

In Chinese, Japanese, and Korean folklores, foxes (huli jing in China, kitsune in Japan, and kumiho in Korea) are powerful spirits that are known for their highly mischievous and cunning nature, and they often take on the form of female humans to seduce men. In contemporary Chinese, the word "huli jing" is often used to describe a mistress negatively in an extramarital affair. In Shinto of Japan, kitsune sometimes helps people as an errand of their deity, Inari.

The Moche people of ancient Peru worshiped animals and often depicted the fox in their art.[5] The Moche people believed the fox to be a warrior that would use his mind to fight. The fox would not ever use physical attack, only mental.

The Bible's Song of Solomon (2:15) includes a well-known verse "Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom" which had been given many interpretations over the centuries by Jewish and Christian Bible commentators.

To the Jewish sage Matteya ben Heresh, of the 2nd century AD, is attributed the maxim: "Meet each man with friendly greeting; be the tail among lions rather than the head among foxes".[6] "The head among foxes" in this context is similar to the English expression "A big frog in a small pond".

The words "fox" or "foxy" have become slang in English-speaking societies for an individual (most often female) with sex appeal. The word "vixen", which is normally the common name for a female fox, is also used to describe an attractive woman—although, in the case of humans, "vixen" tends to imply that the woman in question has a few nasty qualities.

The fox theme is often associated with transformation in European and East Asian literature. There are four main types of fox stories:

In the Middle Ages and even into the Renaissance, foxes, which were associated with wiliness and fraudulent behavior, were sometimes burned as symbols of the Devil.[8]

An Occitan song dating from the Middle Ages, 'Ai Vis Lo Lop', features a wolf (lo lop), a fox (lo rainard) and a hare (lebre) dancing and circling a tree. It has been suggested that the three animals represent the King, Lord and Church who were responsible for taxation (the lyrics go on to refer to money gained over the year and how nothing was left after seeing 'the wolf, the fox and the hare').

In the Uncle Remus collection of 19th-century African-American folktales adapted and compiled by Joel Chandler Harris, "Br'er Fox" is a major character, often acting as the antagonist towards the stories' main character, "Br'er Rabbit".

Arthur Koestler notes in his autobiography[9] that when he attended the University of Vienna in the 1920s, Freshman students were known as "Füchse" (German for "Foxes") and had their own distinct organization within the student fraternities, presided over by the "Head Fox". All this was derived from centuries-old student traditions and lives on in the so-called Studentenverbindung, such as the German Student Corps.

During World War II, the German commander in North Africa, Erwin Rommel, was grudgingly nicknamed the "Desert Fox" by his British adversaries, as a tribute to his cunning and skill in operational art.

See also specific pages for Foxes in Japanese folklore/Kitsune, Foxes in Chinese mythology/Huli jing, Foxes in Fiction.

Literature (in chronological order)

This Japanese obake karuta (monster card) from the early 19th century depicts a kitsune (fox spirit). The associated game involves matching clues from folklore to pictures of specific creatures
The trickster figure Reynard the Fox as depicted in an 1869 children's book by Michel Rodange.
The Fox and the Cat in Pinocchio, as drawn by Enrico Mazzanti.

Young-children books

Books with loose fox motifs

Movies

Animated movies and series

Anime

Feature movies

Popular music

Folk music

Television

Video games, card games, comics

Other

Monument of Bystrouška, Janáček's opera "The Cunning Little Vixen" at Hukvaldy, Janáček's hometown

Ballet

Heraldry

The fox and castle on the coat of arms of Châteaurenard, France
Reynard and vixen supporting the arms of La Boussac, France

Opera

Morris and folk dancing

Sports

Web-comics

See also

References

  1. ↑ http://www.godchecker.com/pantheon/african-mythology.php?deity=OGO
  2. ↑ http://thewebsiteofeverything.com/animals/mammals/Carnivora/Canidae/Vulpes/Vulpes-pallida.html
  3. ↑ Foxy in Wiktionary
  4. ↑ Outfox in Wiktionary
  5. ↑ Katherine Berrin & Larco Museum (1997). The Spirit of Ancient Peru:Treasures from the Museo Arqueológico Rafael Larco Herrera. New York: Thames and Hudson.
  6. ↑ Pirḳe Abot, iv. 15
  7. ↑ Shenanigan, Your dictionary.com
  8. ↑ Benton, Janetta Rebold (1 April 1997). Holy Terrors: Gargoyles on Medieval Buildings. Abbeville Press. p. 82. ISBN 978-0-7892-0182-9.
  9. ↑ Arthur Koestler, "Arrow in the Blue - An Autobiography", London, 1953, Ch. 10
  10. ↑ Nihon Shoki Chapter 7
  11. ↑ David Garnett (1922). Lady into Fox. London: Chatto and Windus, retrieved from Gutenberg
  12. ↑ Fox Affair at Sunset with English translation at BabelMatrix
  13. ↑ The Love of Simon Fox, Schork, Jonathan, sms2 2016
  14. ↑ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jofNR_WkoCE
  15. ↑ "Foxes Jumping on my Trampoline Video".
  16. ↑ Benton, Janetta Rebold (1 April 1997). Holy Terrors: Gargoyles on Medieval Buildings. Abbeville Press. p. 83. ISBN 978-0-7892-0182-9.

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Friday, April 01, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.