2 34 The Poets Beasts. 



If we accept the myth translations of Gubernatis we see 

 in the fox-jackal the ruddy interval between daylight and 

 darkness that shades off bye-and-bye into twilight-grey with 

 black night-points. It is the crepuscular phenomenon of 

 the heavens taking an animal form. But just as there are two 

 " auroras," the morning and the evening, so the fox-jackal has 

 in every twenty-four hours two chances at the sun-cock, both 

 of which it punctually fails to score, missing the solar fowl 

 with an invariable accuracy that ought by this time to have 

 had a depressing effect upon Reynard. 



In fables the character of the fox is also dual. It is 

 generally the deceiver, but also on occasions the dupe. 

 Many animals on occasion fall a victim to it — in the single 

 romance of Reincke Fuchs it outwits and infamously ruins 

 the king-lion and pretty nearly all his courtier quadrupeds — 

 but every now and again the same animals flout it, make 

 fun of it, play tricks on it. Even cocks and kids have a 

 joke occasionally at its expense, which is very true to 

 nature, for we often see the professional sharper, the habitual 

 traitor, exposed and put to shame by simple honesty or 

 innocent mother wit. Betty with her mop routs the fencing- 

 master. But, above all, the fox is always beaten when he 

 tries to pass off his dishonesties upon other foxes ; the 

 rogues know each other too well to try to guess where the 

 pea is. So when the fox falls by accident into a dyer's vat, 

 and comes out a fine blue all over, he goes back to his 

 kindred and tells them that he is a peacock of the sky. But 

 they recognise his voice, and worry him till they pull all his 

 blue fur off, and he dies. Stories of the same purport are 

 abundant and familiar to all. 



Yet there are plenty of occasions in which the fox behaves 

 very honourably to its friends, and appears in the light of a 

 benefactor, notably, in those tales where Reynard plays tlie 

 l)art of Puss-in-boots, such as Cosmo the Quickly Enriched, 

 and others. Moreover, the cock is sometimes found on the 



