Reynard the Fox  

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"Reynardine" is another English folk song, of later composition. "Sly bold Reynardine" here is an outlaw and possibly a shape-shifter, seeking refuge and romance with a girl he meets "along the mountains high". Fairport Convention (Liege & Lief, Island Records) and John Renbourn have recorded versions of this song. "Reynardine" is another English folk song, of later composition. "Sly bold Reynardine" here is an outlaw and possibly a shape-shifter, seeking refuge and romance with a girl he meets "along the mountains high". Fairport Convention (Liege & Lief, Island Records) and John Renbourn have recorded versions of this song.
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-== See also == 
-*''[[Le Roman de Renard]]'' 
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The Reynard cycle is a literary cycle of allegorical French, Dutch, English, and German fables largely concerned with Reynard, an anthropomorphic red fox.

Contents

Adaptations, versions and references

In movies and television series

Ladislas Starevich's 1937 puppet-animated feature film, Le Roman de Renard (The Tale of the Fox) featured the Reynard character as the protagonist.

The documentary film "The Black Fox" (1962) parallels Hitler's rise to power with the Reynard fable.

Disney produced an anthropomorphic animated version of Robin Hood in which Robin and Maid Marian were depicted as foxes, and other characters from the tale depicted as other animals (including a wolf as Sheriff of Nottingham and lions as both Prince John and King Richard). This treatment would also appear to owe something to the Reynard trickster fables. Indeed, Disney had years before attempted making a movie based on Reynard, but the project was eventually cancelled, due to concerns that he was not suitable as a hero. Many elements were lifted for the Robin Hood movie.

One character in Disney's Gargoyles (TV series) is named Fox Renard. She is a trickster by nature and a thief at her first appearance. She has a fox's face tattooed over her right eye.

In 1985, a French animated series, "Moi Renart" (I Reynard) was created which was loosely based on Reynard's tales. In it, the original animals are anthropomorphic humanoid animals and the action occurs in modern Paris with other anthropomorphic animals in human roles. Reynard is a young mischievous fox with a little monkey pet called Marmouset (an original creation). He sets into Paris in order to discover the city, get a job and visit his grumpy and stingy uncle, Isengrim, who is a deluxe car salesman, and his reasonable yet dreamy she-wolf aunt, Hirsent. Reynard meets Hermeline, a young and charming motorbike-riding vixen journalist. He immediately falls in love with her and tries to win her heart during several of the episodes. As Reynard establishes himself into Paris, he creates a small company at his name where he offers to do any job for anyone, from impersonating female maids to opera singers. To help with this, he is a master of disguise and is a bit of a kleptomaniac, which gets him trouble from police chief Chantecler (a rooster) who often sends to him police cat inspector Tybalt in order to thwart his plans.

In 2005 a Luxemburg based animation studio released an all CGI film titled "Le Roman de Renart", obviously based on the same fable.

In literature

In Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, there is a character resembling Reynard.

A fox called Reynard is a central character in John Crowley's 1976 novel Beasts.

In the 2006 novel, Echo Park, by Michael Connelly, the villain is styled--and named--after Reynard the Fox.

British novelist Michael Moorcock introduced Lord Renyard, a man-sized talking fox, well-versed in 18th Century Encyclopedist philosophy, in his 1986 fantasy "The City in the Autumn Stars".

In the Fables comic book, Reynard the Fox is one of the non-human Fables who lives on "the Farm"---the part of Fabletown reserved for Fables who cannot pass as normal humans, due to its secluded location in upstate New York State. He is opposed to the attempted overthrow of the Fabletown government, and works with Snow White---saving her life while flirting with her mercilessly. Although Snow White offers him no encouragement, he continues to hope for a relationship with her. Centuries earlier, in the Fables Homelands, it was Reynard who devised the elaborate trick that enable King Noble the Lion's subjects to escape after their land was conquered by the Adversary. Ryenard then led them to freedom in the Mundy world. A later book (9) briefly features Isengrim, the wolf.

Author Robertson Davies, in the Deptford Trilogy, has a magician take on the stage name 'Magnus Eisengrim'. The spelling is different, but there are references to 'eisengrim the wolf.'

In the Swedish children's comic Bamse, a new villain is introduced in Issue 7 (2006): a fox named Reinard, who attempts to impress other ne'er-do-wells with his cunning trickery (including dispatching hero Bamse to a remote region of Sweden so that he can pursue a museum raid without hindrance).

In Friedrich Nietzsche's The Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche uses Reynard the Fox as an example of a dialectician.

Science Fiction/Fantasy writer Neil Gaiman wrote a story in verse about Reynard in his collection "Smoke and Mirrors".

In the last issue of Grant Morrison's The Invisibles, one of the side characters is named Reynard, in reference to the original folktales.

In William Shakespeare's play, The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, a side character is named after Tybalt the Cat. This is frequently referred to and joked about in the play.

Reynard is a character in the webcomic Gunnerkrigg Court. He is a creature that can possess another by traveling in through their eyes. He transferred himself to Antimony's stuffed wolf doll and since she wrote her name on it, is stuck in it as her servant.

Rogue Reynard (1947) is a young adult book written by Science Fiction/Fantasy writer Andre Norton early in her career. Norton, who was working at the time as a children's librarian at the Cleveland Public Library, apparently felt that there would be a market for a simple, accessible young-people's version of the tales of Reynard.

L. Frank Baum's story "The Road to Oz," (1909) little Dorothy encounters Renard, the King of the Foxes.

In music

In 1916 Igor Stravinsky composed Renard (aka The Fox), "histoire burlesque cantée et jouée" (burlesque in song and dance), a one-act chamber opera-ballet. Stravinsky's text was in Russian, and based on Russian folk tales from the collection by Alexander Afanasyev.

Reynard the Fox is the opening song on Julian Cope's album Fried (1986). Cope often incorporates folklore into his work. The song describes Reynard fleeing from "redmen" who have killed his wife and child and then ritually sacrificing himself on a hill near Polesworth.

Reynard is a common name for the fox in English folk songs; there are several versions of "Reynard the Fox", with significant variations in both lyrics and melody. Usually the fox here is a predator being hunted down, although most of the tale is told from Reynard's point of view.

Nic Jones recorded a version on "Ballads & Songs" (Trailer Records, 1970).

Scottish indie/country band Country Teasers have a song titled "Reynard The Fox" on their 1999 album, Destroy All Human Life. (Fat Possum Records)

English band Angelica had a song titled "Reynard The Fox" on their 2002 album, The Seven Year Itch.

"Reynardine" is another English folk song, of later composition. "Sly bold Reynardine" here is an outlaw and possibly a shape-shifter, seeking refuge and romance with a girl he meets "along the mountains high". Fairport Convention (Liege & Lief, Island Records) and John Renbourn have recorded versions of this song.




Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Reynard" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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