The Fox King

Esmeralda was the daughter of old chief Rastan of the Hiording clan [1], in the days when Venharl Íntagárnsson ruled the Colymar tribe [2]. Now Esmeralda was young, and Esmeralda was fair. She had three strong brothers, and more lovers courting her than you could shake a stick at. But the tallest and most handsome of all of them was King Fox [3], whom she had met when she was hunting in the forest north of the Creek. He had russet hair, and deep dark eyes, and he wore a fine clan tartan that had never been seen in those parts, and a torc of silver about his neck. No one knew who his people might be, but as a King he was certainly brave, and surely rich, and of all the men who loved her, Esmeralda cared for him alone. At last it was agreed on between her kinfolk that they should be married [4], for apart from all else, he offered a fine bride-price in gold. So Esmeralda asked the Fox King where they would live, and he described to her his clan-stead, and where it was; but, strange to say, he did not ask her, or her brothers, to come and see it.

So one day, near the wedding-day, when her brothers were out hunting, and the Fox King was away for a day or two on a godi's business (he said), Esmeralda took her two spears and crossed the Creek, setting out north into the woods and following the trail that King Fox had described. And after much searching she came to the edge of the tula of the Fox Clan [5] -- and there, staring at her through empty sockets, were two skulls atop poles to either side of the path [6].

Esmeralda threw her Cloak of Mist about her, to hide her from their sight and avert whatever evil they might do her, and so concealed she walked into the tula and up to the stockade. And there another grisly sight met her eyes, for the stockade was of sharpened stakes, and atop each of the fifty tallest stakes an impaled, severed head stared outward, silently screaming in their deep decay.

But Esmeralda was a brave one, and followed Vinga's path. So through the portal she passed unseen and into the stockade of the Fox Clan. And there she spied the hall of the Fox King. And the hall was roofed, and from the eaves of the roof there dangled by their hair more heads of dead men and women and children.

Now Esmeralda slipped on her Sandals of Darkness, that none within might see her, and she passed between two thanes of the Fox Clan and into the King's feasting hall. And here she could see that the roof of the hall was of thatch over bones, and the benches of bone likewise, and in niches about the hall were set the severed heads of freshly-dead maidens. And their headless bodies lay all bloody and dead in a stall behind the Fox King's seat. And for another thing, none of the maidens had any fingers on her hands, but bloody stumps were all that was left.

Well, this was quite enough for Esmeralda, who had by now taken a strong aversion to her mysterious suitor, but as she left the hall and would have left the stockade, whom should she see coming through the gate but King Fox, and he dragging a beautiful young lady along, all in her finery. Well, Esmeralda was afraid he would see her, for all her cloak and sandals, for his eyes were so deep and so dark, so she rushed back into the hall of bones and hid herself in an empty stall, just in time, as the Fox King came in with the poor young maiden, who now seemed to have fainted.

And he took her hand in his own, and bared his bright white teeth, and he bit off her fingers, one by one, and threw them into the stew-pot that hung from the rafters and simmered in the centre of the hall. But when he chewed through and cast away the first finger on her left hand, he missed his aim and it landed flat in the lap of Esmeralda. She was mortally afraid he would note his mistake, but the Fox King was now sawing at the neck of the unfortunate girl, taking her head for a vacant niche beside his seat, so while his back was turned she slipped silently from the hall and fled the tula of the Fox Clan, as fast as her legs could carry her.

Now it happened that the very next day was to be the wedding of Esmeralda and the Fox King, when he would bring the bride-price and take her from her clan. All the things had been made ready, guests had arrived from far and near, and a Lightbringers' Ring formed to sanctify the bond, with Esmeralda's older brother as the chieftain, and so on down to a wandering vagrant as Flesh Man. And the Fox King came with his thanes, and was greeted with all ceremony, and he was seated by Esmeralda's side as the feast was laid, and holding her pretty white hand in his own [7], when he chanced to notice that she was white as snow.

"How pale you are this morning, my dear," said the Fox King, all concerned.

"Yes," said she, "I had a bad night's rest last night. I had horrible dreams."

"Dreams may go wheresoever they will," said King Fox; "but tell us your dream, and we shall see what we can make of it."

"I dreamed," said Esmeralda, "that I went yesterday through the woods to visit your clan, and that when I found the bounds of your tula they were guarded by twin skulls on poles."

"Why, that is so [8]," said the Fox King, "for the ancient enemies of the Fox Clan must now guard our bounds and warn us of unwelcome visitors; though certainly there has never been a guest as welcome as I shall make you..."

"And then in my dream I walked up to the stockade, and there were fifty tall stakes to it, and a severed head topping each of them."

"Why, that too is so," said the Fox King, "for our more recent enemies whom we have defeated in war now ring our stead to warn others away. And I find it very moving, Esmeralda, that you should have dreamed so of our future home on the night before our wedding day..."

"And then in my dream I passed into the stockade and up to your hall, and from its eaves there hung more heads, of dead men and women and children."

"Ah. But that is not so," said the Fox King, "for dreams are often..."

"And then in my dream I entered your hall, and its roof and furnishings were all of bone, and the heads of maidens adorned its niches, and their bodies were all slumped cruelly dead in your stall. And there were no fingers left on their hands, but they all simmered in the stew-pot hung over the hearth of the hall."

"Now that is not so, and it was not so," said the Fox King.

"And as I would have left the hall, you came in, King Fox, and you dragging a young lady behind you, and she in a swoon. And you bit off her fingers, one by one, with your bright white teeth, and you threw them into the stewpot."

"It is not so, and it was not so, and the gods forbid that it should be so," said the Fox King, and he was rising from his seat when Esmeralda cried out:

"Ah, but it is so, and it was so, and here's her finger to prove it!" And she pulled out the lady's finger from her dress, and pointed it straight at the Fox King. And at that, all sprang to their feet and drew their swords, and would have cut King Fox to mincemeat there and then, but the Grey Lawspeaker stopped them.

"This man has been offered the hospitality of our board," he said, "and a curse will be upon our clan if we kill him now." And Flesh Man, who had come from the road and who carried no sword [9], answered him thus: "Aye, he has been offered your hospitality. But will the gods permit that he should accept it?"

Then King Fox snatched up his guest-portion from the table, and cried, "I accept this meat gift [10] with gratitude, oh Hiording men, and I will speak ever of your generosity." And he raised the succulent roast to his mouth, and would have bitten into it with his bright white teeth, but it choked him and he could not swallow. He snatched for a mead-cup and would have drained it dry, but the foaming drink leapt from the cup and spilled itself all down his russet beard and his fine clothes. And the Hiordings, seeing this, knew that he was in no way protected by their hospitality: the gods forbade that it should be so. They drew their swords and drove him from the hall, striking many mortal wounds. And after that, King Fox was never seen in Hiording lands again.

Footnotes

[1] Like all unabridged Orlanthi tales, this one begins with a brief genealogy to set the scene. On the Hiordings, cf. KoS p.207: "Also sometimes called the 'Swansons,' this clan are descendents of Hiord and Safeela, a swan maiden. He stole her magical wrap, and so she stayed with him for seven years, and their children head the main bloodlines of the clan. When they were attacked by the savage Varmandi, they joined the Colymar tribe for protection." None of these details are germane to the story at hand, though they help in its interpretation.

[2] KoS p.210: Venharl Intagarnsson was twelfth king of the Colymar, ruling from 1492 to 1502. He led the tribe to join the confederation with the man named Sartar. It is uncertain whether this event predates the present story: King Sartar seems as likely to have wandered outside as within the bounds of his confederated lands.

[3] Interesting, in that Esmeralda (as a Hiording maiden) would represent a Swan. This tale is perhaps an ancient Hsunchen or Durulz cycle (cf. their cautionary tale of Jemima Puddleduck and the Foxy Gentleman, ed. Potter), now repeating itself in the more developed folklore of the Sartarite Orlanthi.

[4] The Hiordings, descended from a swan maiden, would presumably have been favourably inclined towards marriages with mysterious, unknown, but above all powerful figures from beyond their experience: they could look to their own magical ancestry as evidence for the beneficial results of such matches.

[5] The sacred home territory of an Orlanthi clan, wherein all its ritual sites would be located.

[6] Compare with the well-documented trollish practice of creating "Foe-Cursers" (Troll Cults p.81).

[7] At the Lightbringer wedding of Biturian Varosh (CoP p.111), the officiating priest orders the bride and groom to hold hands throughout the ceremony -- a detail which adds a rather horrible frisson to this particular tale.

[8] Head-hunting was an ancient practice and by no means a despised one, though it was rare by this stage in the evolution of Sartarite Orlanthi culture. There would have been no shame in the Fox King's admission that his clan had formerly followed the custom, but perhaps some slight awkwardness in admitting that it was current. Beyond this point, the disclosures become repugnant to ordinary Orlanthi sensibilities, and have to be denied.

[9] These traits are enough to identify this mysterious Flesh Man as the legendary King Sartar in disguise. Sartar was said to be a Master of the Motion Rune, and was never seen to raise a weapon against another person. For his wanderings, cf. KoS p.137: "Sartar was loved by the common tribes people, for he often went disguised among them and searched for those worthy and just enough to help convey the kingdom towards a good future. Those who he found sufficient were rewarded, often in simple ways..."

[10] In the traditional Orlanthi rituals of hospitality and gift-giving, the meat gift is "a thing we offer only to kinsmen, and those as good as them" (KoS p.62). It would thus be appropriate at a wedding. Certainly the curse for breaking such a hospitality-tie would be great, and the Lawspeaker's caution is wholly justified.

Acknowledgements

This story is essentially an Orlanthi's retelling of Mr. Fox, a traditional English folk-tale (obliquely referred to in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing). My text owes much to the 1821 version collected in Angela Carter's Virago Book of Fairy Tales, and at least as much to the oral version recounted by Peter Ewing at several meetings of the Oxford Arthurian Society. The original Gloranthan tale is told in King of Sartar p.137:

"One time, in disguise, Sartar dealt with the foul Brangbane, the king of the Dinacoli tribe who was buying daughters from distant families with illusory gold. He would cut off their fingers to make a vile brew of evil potency which gave him great power, and then kill the women.

"Sartar's magic gave the evil king an insatiable appetite, and an illness which made all real food repulsive to him. Brangbane solved this by eating the dead, and extracting power from the corpses. But though he survived as a ghoul, he was ever pursued by the ghosts of those he had unjustly slain. Furthermore, the ghosts of these women can be called upon by any Sartarite who needs help against ghouls. Brangbane still runs about the hills of Sartar, plagued and hating, still full of great power until the wailing ghosts catch up with him. His name is usually not spoken, and he is called the King of Ghouls."

For this version of this story, it proved difficult at first to identify the antagonist without giving the game away from the start. But as Brangbane is customarily not named (to avoid attracting his attention?), while any of his modern epithets would be inappropriate, it proved overwhelmingly tempting to identify him with the trickster, Fox, a mythical enemy of the Ducks and the Swan People. The key element of the lady's finger plays the same role in both versions of the tale, and appears even more appropriate in its Orlanthi setting than in the old English story from which it was derived; while Mr. Fox's "God forbid's" find their ironic comeuppance.

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