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b15072c
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I did not want to think about people. I wanted the trees, the scents and colors, the shifting shadows of the wood, which spoke a language I understood. I wished I could simply disappear in it, live like a bird or a fox through the winter, and leave the things I had glimpsed to resolve themselves without me.
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nature
forest
woods
trees
myths
fox
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Patricia A. McKillip |
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b3d45ba
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Red Fox The red fox crosses the ice intent on none of my business. It's winter and slim pickings. I stand in the bushy cemetery, pretending to watch birds, but really watching the fox who could care less. She pauses on the sheer glare of the pond. She knows I'm there, sniffs me in the wind at her shoulder. If I had a gun or dog or a raw heart, she'd smell it. She didn't get this smart for nothing. She's a lean vixen: I can see the ribs, the sly trickster's eyes, filled with longing and desperation, the skinny feet, adept at lies. Why encourage the notion of virtuous poverty? It's only an excuse for zero charity. Hunger corrupts, and absolute hunger corrupts absolutely, or almost. Of course there are mothers, squeezing their breasts dry, pawning their bodies, shedding teeth for their children, or that's our fond belief. But remember - Hansel and Gretel were dumped in the forest because their parents were starving. . To survive we'd all turn thief and rascal, or so says the fox, with her coat of an elegant scoundrel, her white knife of a smile, who knows just where she's going: to steal something that doesn't belong to her - some chicken, or one more chance, or other life.
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burned
morning
margaret
red
house
fox
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Margaret Atwood |
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0d9daaf
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A fox passing through the wood on business of his own stopped several minutes and sniffed. 'Hobbits!' he thought. 'Well, what next? I have heard of strange doings in this land, but I have seldom heard of a hobbit sleeping out of doors under a tree. Three of them! There's something mighty queer behind this.' He was quite right, but he never found out any more about it.
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hobbits
fox
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J.R.R. Tolkien |
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0c9b955
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Yet each flower, each twig, each pebble, shines as though illuminated from within, as once before, on her first day in the Garden. It's the stress, it's the adrenalin, it's a chemical effect: she knows this well enough. But why is it built in? she thinks. Why are we designed to see the world as supremely beautiful just as we're about to be snuffed? Do rabbits feel the same as the fox teeth bite down on their necks? Is it mercy?
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rabbits
mercy
fox
teeth
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Margaret Atwood |
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e3055b3
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"There are a number of good books that draw upon fox legends -- foremost among them, Kij Johnson's exquisite novel . I also recommend Neil Gaiman's (with the Japanese artist Yoshitaka Amano); Larissa Lai's unusual novel, ; Helen Oyeyemi's recent novel, ; and Ellen Steiber's gorgeous urban fantasy novel, , as well as her heart-breaking novella "The Fox Wife" (published in ). For younger readers, try the "Legend of Little Fur" series by Isobelle Carmody. You can also support a fine mythic writer by subscribing to Sylvia Linsteadt's . For the fox in myth, legend, and lore, try: by Martin Wallen; edited by Kenneth Varty; by Kiyoshi Nozaki; by Raina Huntington;
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fox
folklore
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Terri Windling |