Feaxede Sees The Light

I've been most concerned about my vulpine friend Feaxede of late; he's been behaving in a very subdued manner, which is certainly uncharacteristic of him. I'm used to seeing him delightedly loping up to me with some new piece of hot information that he's gleaned during his raiding expeditions researches, but in this last few days he's been keeping a distance from me, so consequently I've been worried for fear that I might have done or said something to upset him. Heaven knows, I've trawled through my recent memory, but I've been hard pressed to come up with anything that I could have uttered in our most recent encounters that would have caused him any grief.

 

Today I decided that it was time to have a little chat with him to determine what the matter was. So I went to the municipal dump archaeological site, and found him sitting there, still looking disconsolate. Grasping the nettle, I told him that I'd noticed he hadn't been his usual self lately, and asked him what was wrong. His answer didn't totally surprise me – although to be honest, I hadn't anticipated it.

 

As you will probably know, Feaxede the Fox joined the Redistributionist Faction – a move which to my mind was a lapse of sound judgment. But never mind. He's a good-hearted creature, and one of my best friends: I have to make allowances for such flaws. Ostensibly, he'd joined the Redistributionists because they'd kindly outlawed the depraved and vicious sport of fox hunting, and he'd perceived that the majority of supporters for this barbarism were paid-up members of the Tree Faction, who became the objects of his deep mistrust. And I also have to say that Feaxede is endowed with a trusting nature – which can be as much a curse as it is a blessing.

 

It appears that the human members of the Redistributionist Faction in the Streonaeshalch branch have been putting the poor creature under considerable pressure by lecturing him about his diet. As you and I know, foxes are omnivorous animals that will happily turn their muzzles to berries, bread, worms and windfalls from orchards, but most of their diet is made up of meat. Since he has such a love for poultry, his dietary habits have attracted the unwelcome attention of his fellow-travelling human companions, who've been sternly warning him that if he continues to eat chicken (which is rich in fat), he'll he'll become obese, sluggish and useless to the Faction, or he'll die of a heart attack within a few weeks.

 

I told him that he was being subjected to the same mindless Redistributionist propaganda that their little friends the soothsayers have been shovelling like manure onto the attention of the long-suffering Northumbrian public for years. I also told him that I'd already seen various human members of the Faction in recent weeks, stuffing their faces with the finest delicacies that could ever grace a human's dinner plate (at taxpayers' expense, naturally). And most of it is full of fat..

 

I must dash – I have a job to do. Feaxede has asked me to write a letter to Edweird the Milliner. I think he's going to resign. And who am I to stand in his way?