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BlackFox
Half-elven
Apr 2 2014, 7:15pm
Post #1 of 17
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Remember the fox from FOTR? The one who sees Frodo, Sam and Pippin asleep in the woods on the first night of their journey from Hobbiton?
LOTR Wiki page concerning foxes reads: The most famous of the foxes approached the company of hobbits as they slept in the woods after they left the Shire. The fox thought it was very queer to see hobbits asleep in the woods. This fox seems to have possessed sentience, although it's not clear if all foxes in Middle-earth did, and this may have simply been personification. Later, the Hobbits see another fox, although it is unlikely that this is the same one they had seen in the woods. (http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Fox)
What do you make of this? Was it an ordinary fox or not? This fox here would really like to hear your thoughts on the matter. 
"Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake." - Henry David Thoreau
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Elwen
Lorien
Apr 2 2014, 8:16pm
Post #2 of 17
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What does the Fox say? *ducks*
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I couldn't resist.
I think it might have just been an ordinary fox. Even an ordinary fox would have noticed the strangeness of hobbits out and about in his woods, and processed that thought in some way. The phrasing of the thoughts though, is I'll grant you a bit sophisticated for an animal, but I've always taken that as a playful bit of personification on the part of the author.
As a slightly off-topic comment, I've often wondered if the fox who meets an untimely end at the hands of Bellatrix Lestrange in Half-Blood Prince is a nod to Tolkien's fox. It's just a very odd animal to choose to have wandering so close the outskirts of a village. I'll admit it's a bit of a stretch though...maybe I just see Tolkien connections everywhere.
Even elves love a Friday Fiesta
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CuriousG
Half-elven
Apr 2 2014, 8:35pm
Post #4 of 17
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There are fox fans out there that love this part, but to me, it never seems to fit, and if we were to know the inner conversations of animals in LOTR, it would make more sense to know what Shadowfax and Bill the Pony were thinking, or the Witch-king's winged stead.
But since Tolkien began LOTR as an extension of The Hobbit with the same light-hearted, children's-tale approach, it makes sense to have a gossipy fox in it, even if it seems like a Disney cartoon. (I suppose the scene with the fox singing to a rabbit and squirrel about the wonderful ways of hobbits was edited out, thank goodness!)
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BlackFox
Half-elven
Apr 2 2014, 8:38pm
Post #5 of 17
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Hey, it's "the most famous of the foxes" you're talking about!
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"Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake." - Henry David Thoreau
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squire
Half-elven
Apr 2 2014, 9:28pm
Post #6 of 17
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Which never made any sense, either
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The fox observes that of all the odd things he's heard of in the Shire, he has "seldom" heard of hobbits camping out. Yet Frodo and his friends are clearly doing something they've often done before. As Frodo says, setting out from Bag End at dusk:
‘Well, we all like walking in the dark,’ he said, ‘so let’s put some miles behind us before bed.’ And so:
‘I am so sleepy,’ [Pippin] said, ‘that soon I shall fall down on the road. Are you going to sleep on your legs? It is nearly midnight.’
‘I thought you liked walking in the dark,’ said Frodo. ‘But there is no great hurry. .... We’ll halt at the first likely spot.’
‘The wind’s in the West,’ said Sam. ‘If we get to the other side of this hill, we shall find a spot that is sheltered and snug enough, sir. There is a dry fir-wood just ahead, if I remember rightly.’ Sam knew the land well within twenty miles of Hobbiton, but that was the limit of his geography. (LotR I.3) Maybe not every hobbit likes camping out the way the Baggins clan does, but in this neighborhood it would seem the animals would be used to Bilbo's and Frodo's night tramps by now. I don't really mind the talking fox, since I see it as a pleasant transition figure between the Hobbit-mode of the early chapters and the LotR-mode that gradually develops. What I've never gotten is the point of the fox's remark, since it's clearly not true.
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Escapist
Gondor
Apr 2 2014, 9:55pm
Post #7 of 17
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What was his business exactly?
What strange doings had he heard about lately in those parts?
If all the world's a stage then who's writing the script?
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Elizabeth
Half-elven
Apr 2 2014, 10:31pm
Post #9 of 17
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They all like "walking in the dark."
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I think hobbits prefer sleeping snug in their beds.
(This post was edited by Elizabeth on Apr 2 2014, 10:31pm)
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Bracegirdle
Valinor
Apr 3 2014, 2:36am
Post #10 of 17
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Next you know he'll be coming up with. . . .
Trees that talk 
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DanielLB
Immortal
Apr 3 2014, 6:38am
Post #11 of 17
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Sentient, sapient or self-aware?
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I think the fox probably falls in to all three categories (and it's likely the same for real foxes too). The only thing restricting the fox is the lack of verbal communication, and as such, how can one determine it's level of sentience, sapience and self-awareness? There's no way of telling if the fox was a personification of the narration, or if Tolkien did intend the fox to be sentient. From a storytelling perspective, it's clear that Tolkien was just carrying on the whimsical charm from The Hobbit.
Why did Tolkien chose a fox? Why not a rabbit, a bird or a hedgehog? I don't have a definitive answer for it, but Google offers some interesting possibilities. In history, the fox is usually associated as a symbol of strategy and cunningness; but Celts believed foxes were clever and wise. In Japan foxes were thought to ward off evil (NZ Strider would approve!), while in China foxes were thought to be inhabited by the spirits of the dead. I can imagine Tolkien knowing at least some of the symbolism of foxes. Is the fox supposed to reflect the Hobbits, or Frodo?
Foxes are quick to act, swift and cunning. All the things needed by Frodo (and the rest of the Fellowship) to destroy the Ring. Could the fox reflect their impending call to action, and the adaptability and ability they will need to quickly move through obstacles on their long journey to Rivendell/Mordor? (The fox is known for sneaking into homes and getting away without being caught, just like Frodo and Sam do in Mordor).
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sador
Half-elven
Apr 3 2014, 7:35am
Post #12 of 17
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But. like Tolstoy, "a hedgehog in conviction"?
This was published shortly before The Fellowship of the Ring.
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Gimloid
The Shire
Apr 3 2014, 5:08pm
Post #14 of 17
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As a slightly off-topic comment, I've often wondered if the fox who meets an untimely end at the hands of Bellatrix Lestrange in Half-Blood Prince is a nod to Tolkien's fox. It's just a very odd animal to choose to have wandering so close the outskirts of a village.
Oh, not at all. Foxes are scavengers, and human habitations are excellent places to scavenge. There are more foxes living in cities these days than there are in the countryside - lots of food available, and no self-aggrandising barbarians on horseback, nor people who can't learn that guns should never be discharged at living targets. Human habitations also often provide a source of prey which is conveniently caged up and cannot escape. They are rather attractive to foxes! (Note: I haven't read any Harry Potter so this excludes the possibility that "odd" makes more sense in an HP context.)
As for the fox that is puzzled by the hobbits - that always seemed entirely natural to me. Foxes are intelligent, both by reputation in folklore and as a scientific fact; they are something like an intelligent dog that moves and hunts like a cat. The fox's thoughts are pretty much what a fox would think in the circumstances, it seems to me, and their presentation in coherent English sentences is in keeping with the largely whimsical tone that the book has not yet dropped. I don't think it indicates that the fox has any particular level of sentience beyond that which one would expect of any fox.
Another point is that ability of "non-special" animals in LOTR to communicate in a human-like manner seems to depend on the person they are communicating with having the ability to understand them, rather than the animal itself having any unusual characteristics. Radagast, for example, can communicate with common-or-garden beasts and birds and ask them to gather and report information in much the same way as human scouts and spies, and there are many instances of characters fearing that animals may be performing such a function on behalf of the Enemy. This would not be possible if the animals did not have a more complex intelligence than their counterparts on Earth, and the fox's thoughts fit the same pattern.
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Ataahua
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
Apr 4 2014, 2:18am
Post #15 of 17
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This might be a bit meta for a Friday, but...
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if we were to know the inner conversations of animals in LOTR, it would make more sense to know what Shadowfax and Bill the Pony were thinking, or the Witch-king's winged stead.
I know that the fox is an example of LOTR's changing tone from the start of FOTR to probably the forming of the Fellowship.
This shift in tone matches Frodo's greater worldliness, in being *aware* of the world, its dangers and machinations. Children have the ability to the heart of things clearly and notice things that adults don't see, and as we get older we lose that wide-eyed wonderment.
Similarly, I can see how all of the animals in LOTR *can* think loudly the way the fox does, but as we follow Frodo's journey and the marring of his hobbity soul we (through the author) are no longer able to be aware of them.
Celebrimbor: "Pretty rings..."
Dwarves: "Pretty rings..."
Men: "Pretty rings..."
Sauron: "Mine's better."
"Ah, how ironic, the addictive qualities of Sauron’s master weapon led to its own destruction. Which just goes to show, kids - if you want two small and noble souls to succeed on a mission of dire importance... send an evil-minded beggar with them too." - Gandalf's Diaries, final par, by Ufthak.
Ataahua's stories
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dik-dik
Lorien
Apr 7 2014, 7:53am
Post #16 of 17
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The book is supposed to be Frodo's perspective, so there's no way he'd be knowledgeable enough to divine a fox's thoughts. More likely it's a plot-lightening device, both Tolkien's and 'Frodo's'; completely made-up. JMO.
The fox thought it was very queer to see hobbits asleep in the woods.
This is IMO completely normal for an animal, though. Coherent thoughts aren't.
"A journalist once asked me what I would like my epitaph to be and I said I think I would like it to be 'He did very little harm'. And that's not easy. Most people seem to me to do a great deal of harm. If I could be remembered as having done very little, that would suit me." ~ Paul Eddington
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Hamfast Gamgee
Tol Eressea
Apr 23 2014, 10:37am
Post #17 of 17
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Tolkien might have described the fox as having a pin-stripped suit, wearing a bowler hat, walking in two legs and serving the Hobbits tea!
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