Hi Jon,
Are you aware of the black fox that hides in people’s shadows in Herefordshire? It may all be cider-fuelled fantasy (I found the legend on a bottle of Dunkertons cider!) but it’s new to me. Perhaps you could alert your members to my short blog about it? I’d love to know what people think. The link is http://uncannyuk.blogspot.com/2011/01/beware-black-fox.html
Many thanks,
Richard
Hi Richard and CFZers,
ReplyDeleteBlack foxes are no fantasy! I have seen one with my own eyes in Victoria, Australia, and we detailed their existence in our book Australian Big Cats: An Unnatural History of Panthers as a possible source of panther sightings.
The University of WA's Fox DNA Project was sent the same photograph that we used in our book of a jet black fox here: http://www.foxdna.animals.uwa.edu.au/
So as you can see, truth is once again stranger than fiction :-)
Funnily enough, we have a very dark fox in the North Wales village I live in (Gwernaffield, Flintshire) - I'd say it's brindle, though, rather than melanistic. A genuine black fox sounds cool, and I know their fur was sought after in the days when women wore fur - perhaps they were specially bred? What I'd really like to know is whether the fox-that-hides-in-your-shadow is genuine British folklore, since it is certainly new to me.
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