# The Fox



## Ardamir the Blessed (Mar 16, 2004)

The well known incident in LR, 'Three is Company':


> A few creatures came and looked at them [Frodo, Peregrin and Samwise] when the fire had died away. 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 q.u.e.e.r behind this.’ He was quite right, but he never found out any more about it.


 What is the significance of this? Why did JRRT include it?

Is it perhaps an example of the way each of us, at times, casually cross paths with people who are at the beginning of an epic and critical chapter of their lives, and we notice them as we pass, and then think no more about it (ie: while driving by a car accident)? And yet those people are about to live through something enormous. 


From the draft of LR, ‘A Knife in the Dark’ (HoMe VI: _The Return of the Shadow_):


> Whether because of Trotter's skill or for some other reason, they saw no sign, and heard no sound, of any other living thing all that day, and all the next day: neither two-footed (save birds), nor four-footed (except *foxes and rabbits*).



But the published version suspiciously reads:


> Whether because of Strider's skill or for some other reason, they saw no sign and heard no sound of any other living thing all that day: neither two-footed, except birds; nor four-footed, except *one fox and a few squirrels*.



Could this be the same fox? It seems a bit doubtful considering the last part of my quote from LR, 'Three is Company':


> he [the first fox] never found out any more about it



Also, the line in the draft deals with the living things they saw during *two days*; the published line with living things they saw during *one day*. Therefore one may assume that JRRT thought that seeing several foxes and rabbits during one day was too much and decreased the amount.

I do not think this is of importance but I throw it in anyway:

Tolkien also mentions foxes and squirrels in the same line in the _Narn I Hîn Húrin_:


> A shadow of fear only she [Nienor] remembered, and so she was wary, and sought ever for hidings: she would climb into trees to slip into thickets, swift as *squirrel or fox*, if any sound or shadow frightened her; and thence she would peer long through the leaves before she went on again.


 Perhaps he just liked foxes and squirrels more than the average animal and felt like putting those in?


The first fox seemed intelligent enough to realise that Hobbits sleeping in the forest was an unusual and mysterious happening. JRRT even gave its thoughts as a line, and it seems that he perhaps wanted to differentiate between the fox and the other creatures that came and looked at the Hobbits. The fox stopped several minutes. It is common in fairy tales and fables that animals speak and think, but are there any other examples of seemingly unintelligent animals in Tolkien's works doing this? The Eagles and Roäc did this, but those were not ordinary. I cannot think of any, therefore I suspect that this fox was not an ordinary fox. And perhaps the fox seen by Strider and the Hobbits in LR, 'A Knife in the Dark' was not an ordinary one either. I think Eriador is more mysterious than it seems at first.


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## Arthur_Vandelay (Mar 17, 2004)

I think it has a lot to do with rhetorical effect. As you point out, having animals speaking and thinking is common in fairy-stories; the fox incident occurs at a point where the narrative is still in "children's tale" mode, and the child-like hobbits (I know they're not children, but they're relatively wet behind the ears as far as questing goes) have taken their first steps on a journey towards the big, bad, adult, serious world outside of the Shire.


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## Lantarion (Mar 17, 2004)

Ardamir the Blessed said:


> Is it perhaps an example of the way each of us, at times, casually cross paths with people who are at the beginning of an epic and critical chapter of their lives, and we notice them as we pass, and then think no more about it?


Yes that is what it could be seen as; and this is not an uncommon occurrence in Tolkien's writings, take Tuor's sighting of Túrin at Eithel Ivrin in the UT: 


> 'Even as he spoke thus, they heard a cry in the woods, and they stood still as grey stones, listening. But the voice was a fair voice, though filled with grief, and it seemed that it called ever upon a name, as one that searches for another who is lost. And as they waited one came through the trees, and they saw that he was a tall Man, armed, clad in black, with a long sword drawn; and they wondered, for the blade of the sword also was black, but the edges shone bright and cold. Woe was graven in his face, and when he beheld the ruin of Ivrin he cried aloud in grief, saying: 'Ivrin, Faelivrin! Gwindor and Beleg! Here once I was healed. But now never shall I drink the draught of peace again.'
> Then he went swiftly away towards the North, as one in pursuit, or on an errand of great haste, and they heard him cry Faelivrin, Finduilas! until his voice died away in the woods. But they knew not that Nargothrond had fallen, and this was Túrin son of Húrin, the Blacksword. Thus only for a moment, and never again, did the paths of those kinsmen, Túrin and Tuor, draw together.


JRR Tolkien: Unfinished Tales: Of Tuor and his Coming to Gondolin
By the way, an absolutely unbelievable Tolkien-artist I know has painted this incident, you can see the masterpiece here.

It's also a comedic effect, something lighthearted to ease the overall weight of the novel that is to come.. I love the fox, what a guy!


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## Ardamir the Blessed (Mar 17, 2004)

*Arthur_Vandelay:*

I agree with you that the narrative is still in "children's tale" mode at that point, but the eagles and ravens in TH are definitely part of the whole mythology; and if they were not when JRRT first wrote about them in TH they were 'integrated' later, because JRRT could not make that huge changes in TH. The ravens might have originated from Aman, and I think the fox has a similar origin.


*Lantarion:* Yes, the sighting of Túrin by Tuor is an excellent example of a similar incident.


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## GuardianRanger (Mar 18, 2004)

Just to jump in for a moment...that WAS an awesome picture, Lantarion.


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## HLGStrider (Mar 19, 2004)

I used to have a thread entitled "Can We Talk to the Animals?" which asked the "How intelligent was this fox anyway?" question. 

I agree with A_V. It was just passing incident of interest in what was still a lighthearted story. It feels similar to the views of the hobbits in the Shire of the Baggins. It's expressed in the same, quick to judge sort of way, a sort of a humph from a passer by, nothing good will come of it. . .in both cases it is "cute." 

I'll get my old thread linked for you. It wasn't all that serious.


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## HLGStrider (Mar 19, 2004)

http://www.thetolkienforum.com/showthread.php?t=6519&highlight=Talk+Animals

I promised a link.
I provide a link.
Aren't I sweet?


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