A brief history of foxes

Eight hundred years ago, a fox changed a language forever. Before that, the French word for fox was goupil, evolved over a thousand years from the Latin vulpes. Then in the twelfth century an unknown poet wrote a long narrative poem, Roman de Renart, starring a fox named Renart. The poem became wildly popular across medieval France — told in taverns, performed at market fairs — until children called every fox they saw by his name. Gradually renart, later spelled renard, replaced goupil. By the fifteenth century goupil had all but vanished from the language.

Of all the animals in literature, the fox has always been the one closest to us. Unlike the lion, which stands for royalty, or the lamb, which stands for innocence, the fox has never been a single symbol. It is cunning yet tender, dangerous yet lonely. For two and a half millennia we have been projecting ourselves onto it. This essay traces that spectrum:

Aesop — 6th century BC, Ancient Greece. The fox as symbol; the sour grapes that became a phrase in nearly every European language.
Renart — 12th century, France. The fox as character, and the poem that renamed the animal.
Liaozhai — 17th century, China. The fox spirit as lover and moral mirror.
Kitsune — Japanese folklore. The fox as messenger between worlds.
Lawrence — 1923, England. The fox as psychological force.
The Little Prince — 1943, France. The fox who explains what it means to be tamed, and who gave Renard its name.

Renard, the app, is named after that last fox. What Renard is.