The fox is often depicted as a cunning and elusive creature. Across mythologies, the fox embodies a wide spectrum of traits, representing both light and shadow, virtue and vice. Fox symbolism includes qualities such as intelligence, adaptability, and resourcefulness, while also embodying deceit, guile, and the wilderness’s untamed spirit.
In this piece, we’ll learn what the fox symbolizes, exploring its significance across diverse cultures and historical contexts.
1. Trickery
The fox appears in 42 out of a total of 358 fables of Aesop, a famous Greek fabulist in 6th century BCE who wrote moral stories. Notable stories include The Fox and The Grapes or The Fox and The Stork. The fox with its slanted eyes, sharp fangs, embodies cunningness, deceitfulness, and trickery. In folk tales, the fox is always classified as an antagonist, cunning, always scheming to steal from others like in the story “The Fox, the Hare, and the Rooster“.
In Asia, legends say that if someone gives a gift to a fox spirit, they could become its servant. Foxes are also known as clever thieves. In ancient times, people who kept foxes could be accused of theft or witchcraft, while the rich were believed to have made deals with fox spirits for power.
Many folk tales describe foxes as shape-shifters. They could turn into priests to fool villagers or become beautiful women to seduce men. Some natural events, like rain on a sunny day, were thought to be caused by foxes playing tricks.
In Japan, Kitsune (foxes) and Tanuki (raccoon dogs) are both known for their transformation abilities. Over time, they became rivals, using their tricks against each other.
Reynard the Fox depictions
In Europe, during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, people often tell the adventures of Reynard the Fox who often tricks other animal characters to benefit himself or avoids their attempts to get back at him. His main enemy is usually his uncle, the wolf Isengrim.
Read More: Wolf Symbolism Across Cultures
2. Transformation
In Asian folklore, fox spirits often appear as young, beautiful women that seduce men.
The kumiho is a Korean nine-tailed fox that gains shape-shifting powers after living for 1,000 years. Unlike the more morally ambiguous fox spirits in Chinese (huli jing, with huli meaning the fox, and jing meaning the spirit) and Japanese (kitsune) myths, the kumiho is almost always portrayed as evil and violent. It often takes the form of a beautiful woman to seduce men and consume their flesh, hearts, or livers. Some believe the dark nature of the Korean kumiho comes from Korea’s historical struggles with Chinese and Japanese rule, turning a once-neutral spirit into a symbol of fear.
In Chinese palaces, fox spirits represent the idea of “beauty as a weapon,” becoming incredibly attractive seducers who manipulate even emperors, causing disasters that lead to the collapse of dynasties and make people suffer.
3. Deception
In Inca folklore, the fox is seen as cunning and discreet. In Brazil, the crab-eating fox (Cerdocyon thous) is considered to bring bad luck. In many places in Brazil, the crab-eating fox is regarded as a malicious animal, bringing only misfortune.
As an omnivorous species, they forage for food during the rainy season and often hunt crabs in flooded plains, leading to conflicts with humans. People do not trust these threatening animals and see them as competitors for their livestock, considering them rivals in hunting.
In Japan, there is the Kitsune dance, with depiction of the fox on performance masks often using colors like red, yellow, orange, or adds details of sharp fangs to create an impression of its vicious and malicious nature.
In contrast, soft colors like pink, green, and yellow are associated with gentle characters like rabbits and birds, representing their gentle and noble souls.
Read More: Symbols of Innocence Across Cultures
However, in the movie Zootopia, the foxes have been portrayed as capable of redemption. For instance, Nick Wilde becomes the first fox police officer, and Gideon Gray becomes a respected baker. The fox is also the main character in the series “Domino – The Story of a Black Fox” and the animated movie “The Fox and the Hound” by Walt Disney, featuring the fox Tod.
4. Fertility
In literature and art, the fox is also depicted romantically as a love nymph who dares to overcome prejudices to find love, willing to sacrifice life and centuries of cultivation to experience happiness in human form.
In English-speaking cultures, the terms “fox” and “foxy” have evolved into slang referring to a person, typically female, with sexual allure. Similarly, “vixen,” typically the term for a female fox, is also used to describe an attractive woman. However, when applied to humans, “vixen” often suggests that the woman possesses some negative traits.
5. Duality
Additionally, the fox’s distinctive behaviors have led to the attribution of supernatural powers to it. Foxes are most active during the twilight hours preceding dawn, a period symbolizing the transition “between two worlds” – between night and day, cold and warmth, yin and yang.
One famous fox spirit in Chinese tales is Daji. She was married to King Zhou of Shang but was possessed by a nine-tailed fox spirit. Together, they were cruel and tortured people. This led to revolts, and eventually, a new dynasty was formed by King Wen of Zhou. The fox spirit was later driven out by Jiang Ziya, the first Prime Minister of the Zhou dynasty, and condemned for being too cruel by Nüwa.
However, there are also stories of foxes being kind-heared. There is a Japanese poem about Princess O Haru San, who saves a young fox cub from hunters. Later, she falls gravely ill, and no healer can cure her. Ito, a loyal soldier, stays awake through the night and hears a mysterious voice reveal the cure—fox liver in her rice broth.
Hunters search for a fox, but none can be found, as they have all gone into hiding. Just as hope fades, a mysterious woman appears with the cure. O Haru San recovers, but when Ito seeks to pay the woman, he finds only the lifeless body of a fox with a note. The father of the cub she once saved had sacrificed himself to repay her kindness.
Read More: 30 Symbols Of Death In History
6. Intelligence
In Finnish mythology, the fox is a clever trickster but not evil. Though smaller and weaker, it outsmarts the evil wolf and the strong but foolish bear, showing that intelligence is more powerful than strength.
The Moche people of ancient Peru also admired foxes, depicting them in their art as wise warriors who won battles using their minds rather than physical strength.
In ancient Finland, foxes were hunted for their valuable fur. Because of their sharp sense of smell, hunters had to carefully clean their traps to remove human scent, often scrubbing them with pine cones. Foxes were so difficult to catch that those who did were believed to have shamanistic powers.
The creator spirit of foxes in Finnish mythology is Käreitär (or Lukutar), the goddess of flame. Her name comes from lukka, meaning sand bench, where foxes often made their dens. Even today, the Finnish word for the northern lights is revontulet, meaning “fox-fires.”
7. Fortune
Also in Finland, foxes take on a lot of positive symbolism. There’s a legend about Tulikettu, the firefox. Tulikettu was a magical giant fox living in the snowy hills of the far north. Hunters dreamed of catching Tulikettu because it was believed that whoever caught it would become wealthy for life.
Tulikettu resembled the Phoenix bird, and only one could exist at a time. Despite its speed, no one could catch the firefox, as it was as swift as the wind.
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