The Clever Fox
Lumhui Lousing

Translation by Pragya Moirangthem *

An illustration of Folk tale 'Lumhui Lousing' by Nganthoi Lourembam

[In Manipuri society the fox is regarded as a very cunning animal. If a man is very cunning he is often pejoratively called a fox or a man whose behaviour is foxy. Such fox stories are an attribute to the analysis of human character in order to make people wise. To be wise is appreciated but to be cunning is a negative marker in our society.]

Once upon a time, there lived a fox couple in the forest.

The reynard (male fox) was very clever. The vixen (female fox) was pregnant.

And so, one day she asked the reynard to bring her some fish since she was craving for it.

The reynard went far and wide in search of some fish.

On the way, he came across a lake. A huge python resided in it too.

The reynard jumped on the python, sat on it and hunted fish mistaking the python for a floating phum [1].

While the python was taken aback by the reynard’s audacity, the reynard jumped off the python and went away with the fish he had caught to feed his wife. The python was infuriated by the reynard thinking that the latter had disrespected him.

The next day, the python disguised himself as a dead cow when the reynard came to hunt fish again.

The reynard realized that it was not a dead cow and tried to bite the back of the python’s neck; at the same time, the python tried to hit the reynard’s mouth with his huge tail.

Both missed the targets. The reynard narrated the entire story to his wife and told her that it was not safe for them to stay in the same place anymore because the python would come hunting for them.

For their safety and safeguard, they left that place.

On their way, the vixen suffered terrible labour pain and gave birth to pups in a bush. But the bush turned out to be the residing place of a tiger.

Nearby the tiger’s place, on top of a huge tree a monkey resided too. The clever reynard did not want to kill the tiger and so he pretended to befriend the monkey.

While they were making plans as to how they would kill the tiger, the tiger reached the place.

As they had planned, when the tiger reached the place, the reynard shouted to the monkey from a bush, “Dear friend, when you give birth to your infants ten tigers die, how many tigers will die when my pups are born?”

On hearing this, the tiger got scared and ran towards the side the monkey was hiding and in the confrontation that followed the monkey was killed by the tiger. The tiger ate the dead monkey. But the tiger was scared that the fox would come and so he went to a place and hid there.

In this way, the clever fox lived happily for many years with his vixen and pups.

[1] Floating biomass which can be found in the Loktak Lake of Manipur. Also known as phumdi, it is heterogeneous mass of decomposed soil, vegetation and organic matter.