Christopher: The sly, cunning fox outsmarting everyone? That's the cartoon. The real story is about an animal so baffling, so ambiguous, that for centuries, humanity's greatest thinkers—from scientists to priests—could only conclude it was wicked, incomplete, or even a servant of the Devil. Lucas: Wicked? A servant of the Devil? Hold on, I thought we were just talking about an animal that steals chickens and looks good on a Christmas card. That’s a pretty serious accusation to level at a small mammal. Christopher: It is, and it reveals something profound about us, not just the fox. This whole fascinating puzzle is the subject of our discussion today, from the book Fox by Martin Wallen. Lucas: Fox by Martin Wallen. Got it. So, is Wallen a zoologist who spent years tracking them in the wild? Christopher: That's the fascinating part. He's not. Wallen is a professor of literature. He's interested in the idea of the fox, the story we've built around it. His book was really the first comprehensive cultural study of the animal, which explains why it has this reputation for being so thoughtful and illuminating, even if it polarized some readers who were probably expecting a biology textbook. Lucas: Ah, that makes sense. So he’s not just looking at the animal, he’s looking at the animal’s reflection in the human mind. Christopher: Precisely. And that reflection is a very, very strange one.

Christopher: The chicken thief stereotype is just the tip of the iceberg. The real story, the one Wallen uncovers, starts over two thousand years ago with a man who tried to categorize the entire natural world: Aristotle. Lucas: Okay, Aristotle. The father of Western philosophy. I'm guessing he had some strong opinions. Christopher: He did. Aristotle built this grand hierarchy of all living things. At the top, closest to the divine, was man—associated with warmth, fluidity, and intellect. And what did he place at the other end of the spectrum? What was the antithesis of the noble human? Lucas: Let me guess. The fox. Christopher: The fox. He saw it as a creature of the earth—cold, bony, and defined by its "wickedness." And his reasoning is incredible. He condemned it because it was elusive, because it hid in burrows, because it refused to be easily observed and classified. Its very nature was a disruption to his neat and tidy system. Lucas: Wait, so you're telling me that a scientist like Aristotle basically called the fox 'evil' just because it was good at hiding? That doesn't sound very scientific. It sounds like he was just annoyed. Christopher: It's a perfect example of how cultural bias seeps into what we think of as objective science. The fox didn't fit, so it was labeled "false" or "incomplete." This bias is literally baked into the language of zoology. The scientific names for many fox species, derived from Latin and Greek, carry these negative connotations. The word "vulpine" itself comes from this tradition. Lucas: What exactly does 'vulpine' mean? Is it just a fancy word for 'foxy'? Christopher: It is, but it carries all that historical baggage—cunning, trickery, deceit. And this prejudice wasn't just ancient history. Wallen tells this incredible, and frankly disturbing, story about Charles Darwin. Lucas: Darwin? The father of evolution? This should be good. Christopher: In the 1830s, Darwin is in South America. He encounters a local species of fox, a chilla. Now, European foxes had been hunted for centuries, so they were incredibly wary of humans. But this South American fox had no reason to fear people. It was just sitting there, "intently absorbed" in watching the crew of the Beagle. Lucas: Okay, so it's a curious animal. That seems pretty normal. Christopher: Not to Darwin. He saw its lack of fear, its failure to be "cunning," as a sign that it was somehow a lesser, incomplete fox. It wasn't living up to the European standard. So, because the fox was so unafraid, Darwin was able to just walk right up to it. Lucas: And observe it? Study its unique behavior? Christopher: He killed it with his geological hammer. Lucas: Come on. He just walked up and killed it with a hammer because it wasn't acting like a 'proper' European fox? That's… dark. It's not science; it's a prejudice with a violent outcome. Christopher: It's the ultimate expression of that bias. The chilla was "culpable and false," as Wallen puts it, because it broke the rules of what a fox was supposed to be. It had to be collected, categorized, and in this case, dispatched, to make sense of it within that biased framework. This animal’s very existence challenged their worldview. Lucas: That’s wild. It’s like the fox’s greatest crime is its adaptability. It changes depending on its environment, and that makes people deeply uncomfortable. They want it to be one thing, but it refuses. Christopher: Exactly. It's the ultimate ambiguous animal. And that ambiguity is what forces us to project our own ideas onto it. This is perfectly illustrated by the introduction of red foxes to Australia in the 1840s. Lucas: Why on earth would they do that? Christopher: For sport. English colonists wanted to recreate the aristocratic fox hunt. But the red fox, being the supreme adapter, didn't just play along. It thrived. It exploded across the continent. Within 50 years, the government had to put a bounty on them. They ended up contributing to the extinction of at least 20 native Australian species. Lucas: Wow. So they introduced it for a game, and it ended up re-engineering an entire continent's ecosystem. That’s a terrifying level of adaptability. Christopher: It is. The fox turns up where it shouldn't be, and it changes the rules of the game wherever it goes. It defies our attempts to control it, whether that's an aristocrat's hunt or a scientist's neat little box.

Lucas: Okay, so science struggled to pin the fox down. But that prejudice, that idea of the fox as a rule-breaker, must have come from somewhere. Christopher: And that prejudice isn't just in science. It's a direct reflection of the stories we tell. In the West, especially in Christian Europe, the fox became the ultimate villain. Its cunning wasn't seen as intelligence; it was seen as demonic deceit. Lucas: Like a little furry devil. Christopher: Literally. In medieval texts like the Physiologus, the fox is an allegory for the Devil. Its burrowing into the earth was compared to the Devil burrowing into the human soul to plant sin. There are these amazing medieval carvings in cathedrals showing a fox dressed as a bishop, preaching to a flock of geese, with the caption, "God is my witness how I long for you all in my stomach." Lucas: That is brilliantly cynical. So the fox is a hypocrite, a predator in priest's clothing. Christopher: Exactly. This all culminates in the famous Reynard the Fox tales, which were hugely popular across Europe. Reynard is this charming, witty, completely amoral rogue who runs circles around the powerful but dim-witted authorities, like the wolf and the bear. He's a thief, a trickster, a seducer—he embodies everything that threatens the established social order, but you can't help but root for him a little. Lucas: He sounds like the Loki of the animal kingdom. You know he's the bad guy, but he's also the most interesting character in the room. Christopher: A perfect analogy. But here's where it gets truly fascinating. That's the Western story. You go to other parts of the world, and the fox's role is completely different. In Asia, particularly Japan, the fox isn't just a trickster; it's a powerful spirit. Lucas: You mean the Kitsune, right? The ones with multiple tails? Christopher: The very same. The Kitsune is a shape-shifter. It can appear as a wise old man, a beautiful young woman, or a terrifying phantom. It can be a benevolent guide that leads a lost monk to enlightenment, or it can be a seductive spirit that marries a human and lives with them for years. Wallen mentions the famous tale of Tamamo-no-Mae, a legendary nine-tailed fox who becomes the emperor's favorite consort, secretly draining his life force and plunging the kingdom into chaos. Lucas: Wow. So in one part of the world, the fox is the Devil's sidekick, and in another, it's this epic, magical being that can topple empires or fall in love with you. How can one animal mean such opposite things? Christopher: Because the animal itself is a blank slate for our cultural anxieties and desires. In Japan, the Kitsune represents a powerful, mysterious force that exists just outside the bounds of human society. It embodies transformation, desire, and the porous boundary between our world and the spirit world. The idea of a fox spirit is so much more epic and romantic than just a sly cartoon character. Lucas: It really is. It’s a being of immense power, not just a petty thief. Is there anywhere the fox is seen as purely good? Christopher: There is. Wallen brings up the Andean Quechua people in South America. For them, the fox is a sacred figure. It's not a villain or a seducer; it's a guide. It represents the transitional space between childhood and adulthood. Lucas: A guide? How does that work? Christopher: In their rituals, a young man chosen to be a guardian of the crops is called an ararihua. As part of his initiation, he wears fox skins. The idea is that to successfully make the transition into his adult role, he has to become a fox of sorts—he has to embody its connection to the earth, its ability to navigate boundaries. They even call the fox the "son of the earth" because they believe it can hear things through the ground, that it possesses a knowledge we don't. Lucas: That's incredible. So you have three totally different foxes: the European Devil, the Asian Spirit, and the South American Guide. It’s like the same animal was dropped into three different cultures, and each one saw a reflection of its own core values: order, magic, and nature. Christopher: Exactly. The fox is a mirror. What we see in it tells us everything about what we value, what we fear, and what we revere.

Lucas: So what's the big takeaway here? After looking at the science and the myths, what does our global obsession with the fox—whether we hate it or worship it—really say about us? Christopher: I think Wallen's core idea is that the fox holds up that mirror you just mentioned. Its fundamental quality is its ambiguity, its refusal to be tamed or to fit in a neat box. And that quality forces us to define our own boundaries. Lucas: How so? Christopher: In cultures that value rigid order and clear-cut morality, like medieval Europe, the fox's elusiveness is seen as a threat. It's a disruptive force, so it becomes the villain. In cultures that have a more fluid understanding of the world, that respect the mysterious and the transitional, like in Japan or the Andes, that same elusiveness is seen as a source of power. It becomes a spirit or a guide. Lucas: So our reaction to the fox is a litmus test for how we feel about chaos and ambiguity. Christopher: Precisely. The fox isn't just an animal; it's a symbol of everything wild, cunning, and untamable that we see—and often fear—in ourselves. Wallen has this fantastic quote that sums it all up. He says that fox narratives "strongly suggest that we humans have always been uncomfortable in recognizing a bit too much of ourselves in the fox – and too much of the fox in ourselves." Lucas: That gives me chills. We push it away because it feels too familiar. We call it a monster or a thief to avoid admitting that we have that same "vulpine" cunning or wildness inside us. Christopher: We assert our "distinctive humanness," as he puts it, by condemning the fox. We define ourselves by what we are not, and for much of Western history, we decided we are not the fox. Lucas: It makes you wonder what other animals we've completely misunderstood just because of the stories we've told about them. What are the 'foxes' in our own lives, the things we label as 'other' because they reflect a part of ourselves we're not ready to face? Christopher: A question to ponder. For now, this is Aibrary, signing off.