❄️Attention! New Christmas stock in my Etsy shop! Lots of new delightful antique prints, perfect as stocking fillers! Reindeer! Arctic hares! Polar bears! Edwardian children's illustrations, Shell nature posters and Japanese woodblocks! Signed copies of Reynard the Fox! etsy.com/shop/SourisdesMoiss… ❄️

Old Fox's Ghost Stories: The Roman Road "Because of the thick mist which rises from the marshes, the atmosphere in this region is always gloomy" (Appian, Roman History, III.14.6-8). The Mink lived in a tall, pale blue house on the main village square. From time to time, to make ends meet, he took in paying guests. Before making their breakfasts, he made it a habit to go for a swift constitutional, sometimes leaving before dawn. His usual route was across Church Green, right up Spindleberry Lane, down Vicarage Road, turning off at Honeyzuck, then back in the square and home. But that Hallowtide morning, he suddenly fancied a change and set off instead along the straight Dorchester road, an old Roman road, which ran east towards the river. He could barely see ahead of him in the darkness and fog. There was no-one around. Everything was still, even the birds were asleep. He passed rambling thatched cottages, some with oil-lamps lit in upper rooms, until he eventually reached the ancient bridge, where he lent on the stone parapet and looked down to the river. Here the fog was the heaviest and densest he had ever seen, it rose from the water in strange undulating waves, swirling around him, soaking his fur and his scarf and his hat. He couldn't tell where he was, nothing of his dear, friendly village remained, and a strange panic came over him. Then, in the near distance he heard muffled sounds of voices and the clopping and ringing of hooves, and a tramp, tramp, tramp of heavy footsteps. He turned around, but something deep within him told him to stand back, to press himself as far as he could into the weathered stones of the bridge away from the centre of the road. A few moments later, they came. First, the horses, grand and gleaming, ridden by figures in shining armour with golden helmets plumed with scarlet, then a long trail of men looking cold and tired, but resolute. They crossed the bridge and as they passed he could smell their bodies and the horses' sweat and a faint odour of wine and fish. Then they were swallowed up in the thick grey rouk and were gone and all was silence once again. The Mink couldn't move. He stood there transfixed, unable to even begin to think about what had happened, what he had seen. He forgot about the breakfasts and his busy day, and he would have probably stayed on that spot, mid-bridge, until evening, had not Old Fox, walking up the road to visit a friend for elevenses, came across him, realised something was terribly wrong and gently helped him home.