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

[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.