The little foxes came out at eve to carry their bones away

[sovay]

Via cucumberseed: 16,500 years ago in Jordan, there were foxes buried in human graves. The authors of the original paper believe they might have been, if not precisely pets, then "potential domesticates . . . smaller and easier to control—although more skittish and timid—than the wolf. It seems likely that foxes could have shared a similar type of relationship with humans as wolves did, even if they were never truly domesticated." I will never make an archaeologist. I flashed on 'Uyun al-Hammam as a graveyard of kitsune: some buried in their human-shape, some in fox.

Comments

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

What a delicious idea.

[sovay]

What a delicious idea.

Thank you. Welcome to my brain.

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

I flashed on 'Uyun al-Hammam as a graveyard of kitsune: some buried in their human-shape, some in fox.

If you can use it, I think you should. Also the title to this post is brilliant.

[sovay]

If you can use it, I think you should.

If I can, I will. Currently I'm fighting with another historical poem. Feel free to (i.e., please) do things with Prominence in the meantime.

Also the title to this post is brilliant.

It's from Peter Dickinson's City of Gold (1980), where Samson and Delilah are retold as a Child ballad.

[chomiji]

Did you like City of Gold? I meant to get it at one point, and then lost track of the idea. (The story of my life ... .)

[sovay]

Did you like City of Gold?

Yes. Not all of its retellings work equally for me, but I am very fond of the professional storytellers comparing notes on the Biblical and Babylonian flood stories, Saul as an Alexandrian doctor's case history of demonic possession, and David and Goliath as a lecture by a Babylonian drill sergeant on how not to get killed by crazy shepherds with slings. Most of the rest are similarlly inventive and several of them are poems.

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

If I can, I will. Currently I'm fighting with another historical poem. Feel free to (i.e., please) do things with Prominence in the meantime.

Some things are definitely perking up. If I can, I will. Good hunting with the poem. If you want another set of eyes on it, I kind of owe you.

Samson and Delilah are retold as a Child ballad.

That's brilliant.

[sovay]

That's brilliant.

I recommend the collection. I have consistently bounced off Peter Dickinson as a writer of novels (although I hold out hope for his alt-historical mystery King and Joker, provided I can track it down), but City of Gold and Merlin Dreams (1988) went into my brain early.

[chomiji]

I love King and Joker, but I love most of his books, so that may not portend anything good for your enjoyment of it.

[sovay]

I love King and Joker, but I love most of his books, so that may not portend anything good for your enjoyment of it.

I'll still take recommendations—I might have been trying the wrong stuff.

[helivoy.livejournal.com]

This is not surprising, given that wolves (future dog pool) are not abundant in that part of the world, whereas foxes and jackals are. Foxes, like coyotes, venture rather matter-of-factly into human habitats and can be quasi-tamed if taken young -- which of course implies killing their mother.

Moving of bones with selected accoutrements after a certain interval is a common custom in agrarian cultures with little cultivable land.

Also interesting, most Mediterranean myths don't have kitsune equivalents, though they have plenty of talking foxes. Foxes have too much personality to deign becoming shapeshifters. Like Coyote, Fox is her own person.

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

Also interesting, most Mediterranean myths don't have kitsune equivalents, though they have plenty of talking foxes. Foxes have too much personality to deign becoming shapeshifters.

Interesting. I would like to learn more. I need more time in my day for research.

Like Coyote, Fox is her own person.

This made me smile.

[helivoy.livejournal.com]

She is, you know -- coyotes and foxes are loners like cats, rather than pack animals like the rest of the dog family. And in Hellenic, foxes are "she".

[hans-the-bold.livejournal.com]

Foxes? Every time I heard about foxes, I can only think of Steve Martin and Dan Aykroyd and the swinging Festrunk brothers from Czechoslovakia.

Bring on the FOXES, because we are two WILD AND CRAZY GUYS!

[sovay]

Foxes? Every time I heard about foxes, I can only think of Steve Martin and Dan Aykroyd and the swinging Festrunk brothers from Czechoslovakia.

They would have been a disaster at a dig site . . .

[rose-lemberg.livejournal.com]

I don't know if you know about this, but http://sibfox.com/

[sovay]

I don't know if you know about this, but http://sibfox.com/

I do; thanks. I feel very mixed about the idea of taming foxes.

[shweta-narayan.livejournal.com]

I like your interpretation better.

[sovay]

I like your interpretation better.

Heh. Thank you. I don't know what they would have called fox-spirits in the Epipalaeolithic.

[shweta-narayan.livejournal.com]

Er, whatever they would have called 'em, I think we'd want to translate it "fox spirits" :)

[sovay]

Er, whatever they would have called 'em, I think we'd want to translate it "fox spirits"

Well, yeah. But I'd love to know!

[larryhammer]

Well, that IS what it makes one think about ...

[sovay]

Well, that IS what it makes one think about ...

Good!

[ibid.livejournal.com]

I'm vaguely reminded of the custom of interring an animal in a house to protect it. Maybe it was something similar.

[sovay]

I'm vaguely reminded of the custom of interring an animal in a house to protect it. Maybe it was something similar.

It doesn't sound like it; the paper cites one case of a grave where a human and a fox were buried side-by-side: when the human skull was disinterred and reburied, the fox's was moved with it.

[alankria.livejournal.com]

O M G

I just love the part where the human appears to have been moved, and the fox with him/her, because the connection was considering so significant.

Going into a story so hard.

[sovay]

Going into a story so hard.

Prrrt.

Just make sure to let me see it.

[alankria.livejournal.com]

Just make sure to let me see it

Will do. =)

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

I will never make an archaeologist. I flashed on 'Uyun al-Hammam as a graveyard of kitsune: some buried in their human-shape, some in fox.

I don't know, archaeologists can be pretty eccentric, sometimes. Not that I recommend being one--it wasn't a pleasant job, in the end, although that may have been mostly because of the company I was working for.

I love this idea, in any event. If it inspires anything, I'd like to read the result.

[seajules]

It's common household myth that one of our pups is descended from foxes as much as from wolves; he looks singularly fox-like (he's a Sheltie whose ears never folded, though he's going on eight years old), and he has other foxish qualities.

[sovay]

It's common household myth that one of our pups is descended from foxes as much as from wolves; he looks singularly fox-like (he's a Sheltie whose ears never folded, though he's going on eight years old), and he has other foxish qualities.

Hee. Pictures?

[seajules]

Most of the pictures we take come out blurry, but he's good about sitting for the studio, so here's one from last spring:


Here's all four of them, for comparison:

[shirei-shibolim.livejournal.com]

I will never make an archaeologist. I flashed on 'Uyun al-Hammam as a graveyard of kitsune: some buried in their human-shape, some in fox.

Perhaps you should try writing.

[sovay]

Perhaps you should try writing.

But it's such an uncertain lifestyle . . .