The Vixen in Bulgarian folklore

Bulgarian fairy tales, proverbs and legends have created a very peculiar image of the vixen.

    Mountain residents once believed that if they met a vixen, it would be a good omen. They used to say ‘a vixen crossed his way”, and it meant that the man had escaped a disaster or had achieved success in an unexpected way. This legend is associated with the perception of the vixen as a clever animal that manages to find prey or avoid danger employing a series of cunning detours. Folklorists pin the image of the vixen in Bulgarian folklore to the hunting experience of ancient man. That is to say, throughout history, man had noticed and even borrowed from wildlife behaviour certain hunting tricks. Apparently the vixen had attracted human attention with its inventiveness. That is why it has become a steady symbol of cunning and deceit.
     Another saying has it that ‘vixen hunts not, but if she does, she eats her catch alone’. A fairy tale tells the story of the vixen who lured the blackbird into nesting near her den. And then she made the bird repay the favour by giving its own eggs. In other plots the vixen outwits all the other animals, often entices roosters and hens, and even takes advantage of the pussycat. With its cunnings it can even outwit man, Bulgarian folklore warns.
      The following story contains all the notorious vixen tricks. Once a man was driving a cartful of fresh catch. A vixen saw him, lay on the road and pretended she was dead. When he saw her, the man got happy he would be able to make his wife a fur coat. He threw the vixen on top of his catch and rode on. Meanwhile the vixen started throwing the fish out of the cart. When the village man came home he started shouting for his wife to come out and greet him and see the present he had brought her. But the cart was empty. Meanwhile, the vixen had an unexpected guest, a wolf. But the vixen came up with another one of her stories to avoid sharing her fish with him. She lied to the gullible wolf that he could fish it out, just like she had done. She tied a fishing basket to his tail and made him dip it under the streaming water of a windmill. At feeling the heaviness of the fish basket, he got happy as he thought the fish was getting inside. While he was waiting patiently the vixen went to the miller, and began shouting that there was a wolf outside the mill. The miller started chasing the wolf with a wooden staff. The wolf ran in panic and tore off its tail. While this was going on the vixen saw that the miller had made porridge and ate it up. She went to the wolf and told him that he had hit her on the head and her brain was flowing off her head. The wolf believed her and proposed to carry her on his back. Hence the proverb, “the sick carry the healthy”.
    On the other hand, the vixen used to be a totem worshipped as the ancient forerunner of women. She performs the duties of a midwife or the newborn’s godmother. But this symbol has gradually disappeared over the years and has become a parody. The vixen’s cunnings had become the object of ridicule, and her tricks had been exposed and punished in folklore. Instead of gaining profit, the vixen falls into her own trap. In later-dated stories the vixen acts out as a judge, gives advice to a priest, and passes for a humble God-fearing vegetarian so as to coax the rooster and his hens. And even today Bulgarians say, ‘Beware, this person is as cunning as a fox'.

 

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