myth for raspberry

A fox who was loved was killed one day in a clearing. The hunter did not know what to do with dead foxes and so they left the clearing as quickly and quietly as they could imagine.

Like all dead things, the fox became a cloud and left its beautiful body in the field. Before he left he admired the turn of the spine, the design of the snout, so perfect to smell out mice, the thin whiskers, and the way, even now, the wind animated its rust red coat. It appeared healthy even now in death.

The fox decided they were not ready to leave this lovely body, but there was no way. Once a body has given up its ghost, the many things of the earth take hold and it is given to the crows and the bacteria and the mushrooms and the maggots. There is no more to say.

So the ghost went to the forbidden castle of the west where all the dead go. It pressed its ghostly paws against the door.

The ghost of the fox came to a great hall covered in nothing but soil. There was not one single slice of light inside. Echoes rippled through the space and water clung to the walls. It was the darkness of life there. So complete. He did not need to see with his eyes. He felt where to go. He felt that there were many beside him. There are always so many of the dead.

There was a being who they approached who smelled like blood. Her face glowed like roots.

The dead waited there. The dead always have a period of waiting, of watching, so that the memories will wash through their minds. So that they will tell a little story. She held her massive hand out and brought it up to her giant root colored ear and the dead told her their story.

When it was time for the fox to tell her a story. He told her a story about playing with his siblings, about leaving his family and living in a hole in a mountain. He told the story of his fox family, the mugworts and butterflies and big old ash tree, and the hunter who he had watched for days before the hunter finally saw him. While the little fox spirit spoke he etched another story in the her palm, so instead of crying, like she usually did, she started to laugh. The cave shook with her laughter and the whole earth rumbled. Rocks fell up above and flowers danced, giraffes nearly fell and people jumped up and down. She laughed so hard that the fox fell to the ground.

The spirits all around them were stunned at the being’s response to this little fox ghost.

“Your stories must be told.” The creature said.

And she dug into the ceiling above her and took down a raspberry that was growing right above them and placed it in the heart of the little fox. So the fox walks the earth, as part fox and part ghost and part plant. And so if you ever find yourself laughing for no reason, the fox is there, and somewhere in the world, raspberries are ripening.