Week 12 Story: The Fox Wife

One day there lived a lonely fox. He had quite a nice den, but he spent most his days out in the woods hunting. While he preferred to hunt alone, he did get awfully lonely in the evenings. His days were long, with no one to talk to when he returned to his den after a long day of hunting. He became very depressed by his loneliness. His den became a disaster because he had no motivation to clean. Every night before he went to sleep he would pray for someone to spend his life. Someone who would help him do the chores and someone to tell about his day when he came home from hunting.

A few weeks of his wishing past. He started to notice that when he got home from hunting, some things were cleaned and put where they belonged. There were no visible signs that someone had been there. Nothing was stolen, so he was not too worried, but wondered who was coming in while he was gone to clean. He decided that he would pretend to leave to go hunt, then sneak back in to see who or what was sneaking into his house and doing his chores.

He waited for about an hour after his usually leave time, and sure enough he saw the culprit. She was a beautiful fire orange with a little patch of white on her chest. Her ears were perky, and she walked with grace and rhythm. She went straight to the kitchen, cleaning his dirty table from last night's dinner. Then she went out to get fresh brush to remake the couch in the living room. As she was finishing, he revealed himself to her, and asked if she was the one who had been doing these things. She told him yes, that she was his wife and it was her duty.

He was amazed that his wish had come true, and he asked her to stay with him, making sure she knew there was no need from her to leave during the evening. He enjoyed having someone to come home to and talk about his day, and he never had to do any chores.

After a few weeks of living together, the husband realized that the den smelt very musky, and inquired if it was her. She admitted it was her who smelt that way, and if he had a problem with it she would just leave. And do the wife dashed off into the woods, never to return to help him again.

The Fox-Wife Source: Pixabay

Author's Note: The Fox-Woman is a story from the Tales of the North American Indians by Stith Thompson. These are part of the Native American Marriage Tales unit. In this story there was of a fox that transformed into a wife when he went into this man's house while he was away. She did all the chores and cooking. The man caught the fox cleaning the house one day and they decided to live together until the man questioned the fox-woman's oder. The fox was offended and left, never to return. I decided to retell this story using only animals because I liked that idea better than a man and a half human/half fox creature.