Fox Haunting Trivia Quiz

Answer: Aurora borealis, or Northern Lights

The Finnish word for 'Northern Lights' is 'revontulet', which means 'foxes' fire'. In the folklore of northern Finland and Lapland, Tulikettu the firefox was a legendary giant fox who lived in the north, and it was every hunter's dream to catch him, as catching him would make them rich.

However, he could not be caught because he was as fast as the wind. When Tulikettu ran through the snow, his fur touching the snow would create sparks, which became the Northern Lights. There's some truth in the myth - in freezing cold weather, when the air is dry, a fox's fur can become electrified and create tiny sparks.

Answer: Br'er Bear

The 'Br'er Rabbit' stories, collected by Joel Chandler Harris, are based on stories from African-American folklore about the cunning coney and his foes. If you've seen Disney's 'Song of the South', you might remember that it had three animated sections with various Br'er Rabbit stories: 'Br'er Rabbit Earns a Dollar a Minute', 'Br'er Rabbit and the Tar Baby', and 'The Laughing Place'.

Foxes being natural predators of rabbits, Br'er Fox is a recurring enemy who attempts to trap Br'er Rabbit by such means as a snare or a baby made of tar, and Br'er Bear is his dim-witted sidekick. In 'Br'er Rabbit Earns a Dollar a Minute', Br'er Rabbit gets caught in Br'er Fox's snare while stealing peanuts from his garden, but tricks Br'er Bear into taking his place by claiming he was getting paid a dollar a minute to hang there.

Answer: Ninhursag

Ninhursag was a Sumerian goddess of fertility and one of the Anunnaki, the seven major Sumerian deities. She is sometimes equated with Ki, the goddess of the sky, in the 'Enūma Elis' (the Babylonian creation myth), and was also associated with mountains and the wild animals that lived there, such as deer; her temples often had stags depicted on their walls.

Ninhursag was the consort of Enki, the god of wisdom, and in one myth, a series of plants sprang from her body, created by Enki's seed. Enki ate the plants and Ninhursag cursed him, and he became ill. Ninhursag was the only person who could heal him, and a fox, one of her animals, went to fetch her back. She asked Enki where the pain was and drew the pain into her body eight times, each time giving birth to a different god. Foxes were also said to carry the prayers of worshippers to Ninhursag.

Answer: Red-haired women

There are many myths all over the world about animals disguising themselves as humans, often to seduce humans of the opposite sex, and the fox-woman appears in multiple cultures, including Irish myth. Because foxes in Ireland have red fur, they turn into red-haired women, often with green eyes. One superstition says that meeting a red-haired woman while you're setting out in the morning is unlucky, especially if you happen to be a fisherman, because she could be a fox in disguise! Foxes are also believed to predict weather; if a fox barks, it means it is going to rain.

Answer: Silver

Kwahn aka Silver Fox is either male, or female, depending on the nation. In Miwok folklore, she is female, while in Achumawi folklore, he is male. Unlike foxes in various other myths and legends, Silver Fox is not a trickster, but a wise creator god. In an Achumawi creation myth, when all the world was water, Coyote was born from a cloud and Silver Fox from fog; they created a canoe and travelled around in it for several years, but eventually grew tired. Silver Fox combed his fur and used the combings to make land, and created trees, shrubs and rocks.

When the canoe landed on the shore, Silver Fox and Coyote built a sweat-house to live in and created animals and people from sticks.

Answer: Huli jing

The huli jing is a shapeshifting fox that can either be benevolent or malevolent, and is often depicted with multiple tails. Huxíān is a fox god worshipped in northern China; its most common form is a nine-tailed vixen, Huxíān Niángniáng. In one Tang Dynasty legend, a fox could become human by wearing a skull that fit and worshipping the Big Dipper; in another legend, King Yu the Great saw a white fox with nine tails and believed it was a sign that he would marry. Foxes were said to gain the ability to transform into women at the age of fifty.

Daji, a legendary concubine of King Zhou who appears in 'Fengshen Yanyi', was said to have been possessed by a particularly nasty huli jing, which drove her to commit atrocities and torture people, feeding women to snakes, setting tigers on people in a forest and forcing nobles to hug red-hot pillars. The strategist Jiang Ziya later forced the huli jing out of Daji's body.

Answer: Puss in Boots

Giovannuzza is a female, vulpine equivalent of Puss in Boots, who helps a simple young man become rich. His father bequeaths him a pear tree and she gives a bucket of pears to the king, claiming that they belong to 'Count Peartree'. When the king asks to meet Count Peartree, Giovannuzza gets him kitted out with a carriage and fine clothes. She runs ahead of the king's carriage and tells workers in fields belonging to an ogre to tell the king that their animals belong to Count Peartree. She also tricks the ogre who owns the land into hiding in a stove, and claims his palace for Count Peartree. Count Peartree subsequently marries the king's daughter.

However, unlike 'Puss in Boots', this story does not have a happy ending. Giovannuzza requests that when she dies, the couple give her a proper funeral with a beautiful coffin. She plays dead to test them and when the princess says they should give her a funeral, Count Peartree replies that she is just an animal, and prepares to throw her out of the window. Giovannuzza is furious at his lack of gratitude and runs away. In some versions of the story, she drowns in a well.

Answer: Pale fox (Vulpes pallida)

The pale fox lives in the Sahel region and looks similar to a fennec fox, with its bat-like ears and big black eyes. It gets its name from the pale sandy colour of its fur, which acts as camouflage in the desert. In the folklore of the Dogon, Yurugu the pale fox is a trickster and thief, and was born from the mating of Amma, the creator, and Mother Earth. Unlike other creatures, Yurugu was born without a female twin - all divine children being born as sets of male and female twins - and his chaotic nature was caused by an imbalance due to not having a twin.

Pale foxes are thought to know Amma's plans for humanity. If Dogon elders are seeking answers to questions asked by clients, they draw symbols in the sand to represent the questions and possible answers, and scatter peanuts over the symbols to attract pale foxes. If a pale fox comes to eat the nuts, the elders will check where it leaves its footprints to see which answer it has chosen.

Answer: Laelaps

Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, set a giant fox known as the Teumessian Fox upon the city of Thebes in central Greece, as a punishment for an unknown crime. Creon, the ruler of Thebes (and uncle of Oedipus), set the general Amphitryon the task of dealing with the beast, a seemingly impossible task as it could not be caught. However, Amphitryon came up with a clever solution: Laelaps, a hunting hound that could catch any prey, was the perfect counter to the Teumessian Fox.

Cephalus, the husband of the Athenian princess Procris, set the dog on the fox. However, because Laelaps and the Teumessian Fox created a paradox, with one being able to catch anything and the other being incapable of being caught, Zeus turned them both into stone to stop the never-ending chase. He cast the two animals into the sky and the fox became the constellation Canis Minor, while Laelaps became Canis Major.

Answer: Tamamo-no-Mae

Tamamo-no-Mae was a legendary courtesan of the Emperor Toba. The fox spirit who possessed Daji also possessed Lady Kayo and Bao Si, a Chinese concubine, before appearing in Japan as Tamamo-no-Mae. She made the emperor ill and when the astrologer diagnosed the emperor's sickness, he exposed her as a wicked kitsune. The emperor had her hunted down and slaughtered, but her spirit took possession of a stone that released poisonous gases, killing anything that touched it. A Buddhist monk, Gennou Shinshou, eventually exorcised the fox's spirit. The stone split in 2022, causing many jokes on Japanese social media about the fox spirit being responsible for various goings-on around the world.

More benevolent kitsune are associated with the trickster god Inari, and foxes are seen as his messengers; worshippers leave offerings for them at his temples. The tanuki, or raccoon dog, is said to be the kitsune's rival. When a kitsune reaches the age of 1000 years and gains a ninth tail, it becomes a celestial being and turns white or gold.