THE SCENE: Geoffrey of Monmouth recounts one of the dreams of Merlin, in which the young mage re-imagines the fate of Britain as a contest between a fox and a boar. Read this passage and answer: who would you root for?
THE TEXT: Next a Heron shall emerge from the Forest of Calaterium and fly round the island for two whole years. By its cry in the night it will call all winged creatures together and assemble in its company every genus of bird. They will swoop down on to the fields which men have cultivated and devour every kind of harvest. A famine will attack the people and an appalling death-rate will follow the famine.
As soon as this terrible calamity has come to an end, the accursed Bird will transfer its attention to the Galabes Valley and raise it up into a lofty mountain. On its highest peak the Heron will plant an oak and on the branches of the oak it shall built its nest. Three eggs shall be laid in the nest and from them will emerge a Fox, a Wolf, and a Bear. The Fox will devour its mother and then put on an Ass’s head. Once it has assumed this monstrous guide, it will terrify its brothers and drive them away to Normandy. In that country they will in their turn stir up the tusky Boar. Back they will come in a boat and in that way, they will meet the Fox once more. As it begins the contest, the Fox will pretend that it is dead and will move the Boar to pity. Soon the Boar will go up to the Fox’s corpse, and, standing over it, will breath into its eyes and face. The Fox, not unmindful of its ancient cunning, will bite the Boar’s left hoof and sever it completely from the Boar’s body. Then the Fox will leap at the Boar and tear off its right ear and its tail, and slink off to hide in the mountain caves.
The deluded Boar will then ask the Wolf and the Bear to restore to it the parts which it has lost. Once they have agreed to support the Boar, they will promise it two feet, two ears and a tail, from which they will manufacture truly porcine members. The Boar will agree to this and will stand waiting for the promised return of its parts. Meanwhile the Fox will come down from the mountain and will metamorphose itself into a Wolf. Under the pretense of holding a conference with the Boar, it will approach that animal craftily and eat it up. Then the Fox will change itself into a Boar and stand waiting for its brothers, pretending that it, too, has lost some of its members. As soon as they come it will kill them with its tusk without a moment’s delay and then have itself crowned with a Lion’s head.
– Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain, 12th Century AD
