Each has its own particular attributes, and stands for a particular character trait in humans. The fox has traditionally enjoyed one of the racier reputations, being variously seen as cunning and wily, clever and ruthless, an unscrupulous if charming trickster. He provides us with the image of the cad and the seducer, as well as the insolent challenger of authority.

Aesop

Foxes crop up time and again in the fables of Aesop. Already by this stage in literary history (around the sixth century BC), its character was established as devious. It isn’t above getting what it wants by flattery but, even though it repeatedly tricks other creatures, the moral is somehow always more about their gullibility or susceptibility to flattery than it is about the fox’s cunning.

In a typical tale, The Fox And The Crow, the fox spies a crow sitting on a branch with a piece of meat in its beak. The Fox remarks that the Crow has every right to consider itself the queen of birds, for its beauteous appearance, its only drawback being its hideous voice. Determined to prove the Fox wrong, the Crow opens its beak to sing, and of course drops the meat, which is gratefully snaffled up by the Fox. The Fox then adds insult to injury by telling the Crow that it does indeed have a good voice, but sadly no common sense.

Reynard the Fox

A whole series of stories was told in medieval folk literature about a charismatic prankster called Reynard, who eventually gave the French their word for fox, renard. These tales probably derive from a 12th-century Latin satirical work by a Flemish priest, one Nivard of Ghent, but his work is certainly based on folk traditions that are older still. A Flemish version of the tale, The History Of Reynard The Fox, first appeared in English in a translation by the printing pioneer, William Caxton, in 1481.

In this tale, the king of the beasts, a Lion, invites all the creatures of the wood to a great feast at his court, but discovers that many of them want assurances that Reynard won’t be invited. A wolf called Isegrim relates how Reynard stole into his house while his children were asleep, and urinated on them. A hound, Courtoys, tells how a pudding, his only food for the winter, was stolen from him by Reynard. A panther then steps up to indict Reynard as "a very murderer, a rover, and a thief".

When Reynard eventually appears, he talks his way out of these accusations by various subtle arguments. His name, Reynard, means something like "pure hardness", indicating that nothing will turn him away from his villainous nature. It passed into everyday French usage seemingly as a result of these tales, replacing the original word for a fox, goupil, which was simply a version of its Latin name.

Rossel

Another haughty fox surfaces in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, in the story told by the Nun’s Priest. A cock, Chantecleer, has a dream in which he foresees his own death, but his hen, Pertelote, tells him not to pay attention to mere dreams.

Later that day, Chantecleer hears a voice begging him to stick his neck out of his window so that his lovely song can be heard. Little does he know that this is a trap laid by the fox, and when he complies, he is snatched. Soon, it is the fox’s turn to be pursued but, as he is running through the woods with Chantecleer clamped in his teeth, the cock persuades him to turn and pour scorn on his pursuers. As he does so, Chantecleer drops from his jaws and flies up to the safety of a tree. The moral of the story is to beware of flattery, which has undone both Chanticleer and Rossel in different ways.

Brer Fox

Many generations of American children (and many in England too) grew up with the tales of Brer Rabbit and his gang. First published in the 1880s in the US, these were the work of Joel Chandler Harris, a white writer who had been told similar stories by a pair of elderly slaves he befriended in his Georgia childhood. Told in the persona of Uncle Remus, a fictionalised version of these boyhood companions, Harris’s tales are set in the Briar Patch, an idealised rural environment in which peace is only broken by the gentle altercations of the main characters. They form the basis of the 1946 Disney feature film, Song Of The South.

The central character in the stories is Brer Rabbit, and while Brer Fox has many of the attributes we associate with the fox from classical legends, he is – unusually – often outwitted by the rabbit, who occupies the role of the trickster with whom the reader (or listener) identifies.

In one tale, How Mr Rabbit Was Too Sharp For Mr Fox, the fox has the rabbit cornered, and says that he intends to “bobbycue” him. The rabbit pleads that he can suffer any fate, as long as the fox doesn’t throw him in the briar patch. As the fox considers the various sticky ends he might devise for the rabbit, the rabbit says he can endure anything except being thrown into the briar patch. Finally, the fox gets the hint and does just that, slinging him in by his hind legs. The joke is on him, for the next time he looks up, the rabbit is sitting on a hill, calmly picking briars out of his fur. He has, of course, come to no harm, since, as he laughs scornfully, he was “bred en bawn in a brier-patch”.

If this version of the fox as slow and gullible appears alien to the European tradition, this is exactly its point. The fox stands now for the white oppressor, while the rabbit - who is theoretically at his mercy - is the black slave. This particular tale carries a subversive undertone, in that it shows that it is possible for the rabbit to outwit its predator by appealing precisely to the fox’s sadistic instinct. “Brer Fox wanter hurt Brer Rabbit bad ez he kin”, so it is just the fate that the rabbit is pleading to avoid to which he consigns him. The rabbit’s ruse works because the fox has failed to credit him with being able to think for himself.

The Little Prince

A fox plays a central role in Antoine de St-Exupéry’s hugely popular children’s fable, Le Petit Prince, first published in 1943, and much translated since.

A Prince who was born on an asteroid is wandering the earth. While out walking, he meets a philosophical fox, who tells the Prince the true meaning of the care he has taken in tending to a rosebush. He should see that the rose he has nurtured is unique among all other roses, precisely because it is his rose, just as the fox himself is now unique to the Prince since they have become friends.

"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly," says the fox. "What is essential is invisible to the eye… It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important… You become responsible forever for what you have tamed."

In this passage, we encounter a distant descendant of the mischievous, deceitful fox of the old fables and legends. His desire to get the better of everybody has seemingly melted away, and what is left is a more benevolent version of his customary wisdom.

Basil Brush

Basil Brush once ruled the children’s TV schedules. Making his debut in 1963, he embodied all the time-honoured characteristics of the fox, being cheeky, devious and much given to putting one over on his human sidekicks – variously Rodney Bewes, Derek Fowlds, Roy North, Howard Williams, Billy Boyle and Christopher Pizzey.

Basil is reminiscent of the classic English cad, as portrayed on screen by actors such as Leslie Phillips and Terry-Thomas. But whereas there is often an element of buffoonishness about their characters, Basil – as befits a children’s hero – is always one step ahead of his human associates. His is always the smart-alec punchline to every bit of verbal tomfoolery, and if he appears to have a rather overweening sense of self-regard, he has somehow earned it.

Among the collection of puppet stars, only Roland Rat – another creature credited with clever resourcefulness – has come close to Basil in the lovable-rogue stakes.