Magic Fox by James Welch
"Magic Fox" is a poem by James Welch, featured in his collection *Riding the Earthboy 40*, which reflects on the disruption of traditional life among American Indians, particularly those from the northern plains. The poem explores themes of transformation and loss, illustrating how the cultural magic once inherent to these communities has been corrupted by the encroachment of European American influences. Through vivid imagery and symbolism, Welch juxtaposes the natural world with the nightmarish changes that have taken place, such as the surreal transformation of horses into fish.
The poem consists of two stanzas and a couplet, each contributing to the overarching elegiac tone regarding the fading of indigenous culture. The narrative shifts from a depiction of men caught in a disturbed sleep to the introduction of a blond girl whose enchantment deepens the nightmarish quality of their reality. Welch's use of sound, assonance, and internal rhyme enhances the lyrical quality of the poem, inviting readers to engage with its emotional depth. Overall, "Magic Fox" serves as a poignant commentary on the struggles of American Indian identity and the complex relationship with nature and tradition amidst cultural upheaval.
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Subject Terms
Magic Fox by James Welch
First published: 1971, in Riding the Earthboy 40
Type of poem: Lyric
The Poem
“Magic Fox” pictures the destruction of the traditional life of American Indians, especially the northern plains tribes, resulting from corruption by the European American culture. It is the opening poem in Riding the Earthboy 40 by James Welch, an American Indian of Blackfeet and Gros Ventre descent—his first book and only collection of poems.
Welch’s family leased forty acres of land from their neighbors, the Earthboy family, where James rode his horse when he was a boy. Riding the leased land may be symbolic of the American Indians’ traditional relationship to the land—they were stewards, not owners. That the lease was limited to forty acres may represent the nineteenth century restriction of the American Indians to reservations. “Magic Fox” and the other poems in the collection can be best understood in terms of the reality to which the title Riding the Earthboy 40 points.
In “Magic Fox,” truth by which American Indians once lived has slipped into the unreality of nightmare. In the first stanza, the speaker in the poem describes men “that rattled/ in their sleep,” having snored so loudly that they shook down leaves. Kenneth Lincoln in Three American Literatures (1982) suggested that “the death chant, to meet the rattling darkness, has been transformed into the sounds of elderly men snoring leaves off the sun dance tree of life.” In this state of affairs “Truth became/ a nightmare to their fox”—the sleepers’ magic or spirit animal—and the fox transformed their horses into fish. The dreamlike character of the transformation is emphasized by the speaker following the statement “He turned their horses into fish” with a series of questions: “or was it horses strung/ like fish, or fish like fish/ hung naked in the wind?”
The second stanza begins with an image of stars falling on their catch—the fish, presumably, since “catch” usually refers to fish. Yet, abruptly in the second line, the speaker introduces a blond girl whose dancing drew the men around her skirts, and whose magic turned “fox and grief” into nightmare in their sleep. The poem ends with a declaration that the fish are stars “that fell into their dreams.”
Forms and Devices
“Magic Fox” consists of two eight-line stanzas and a final couplet. Each stanza has its own unity. The first describes the nightmarish transformation of horses into fish—the failure of the fox’s magic. The second describes the new magic of the blond girl, transforming both fox and grief into nightmare. The elements of fish from the first stanza and stars from the second combine in the couplet.
Although the sense of “Magic Fox” is elegiac—it is about the passing of a culture—the scene and sound are not funereal. The poem is alive with images of the natural world: green leaves, wind, dawn, dust, stars, and animals (fox, horse, fish, and birds). These natural elements act as both setting and symbol; they are repeated in the other poems in the collection, accumulating significance on which the reader can draw to interpret “Magic Fox.”
The poems in Riding the Earthboy 40 contain the referents of traditional or oral poems and stories—magic animals, the four directions, the seasons, songs, and dances—but Welch treats them all, if not ironically, in an unpredictable post-traditional way. Traditionally, American Indians felt a kinship with animal tribes, had faith in their instincts, were grateful for the sacrifices of their bodies for the sustaining of human life. They admired the special power or magic of animals and elevated some, such as Coyote the Trickster, to special status. In Native American stories Coyote’s cousin, Fox, had special cunning.
Welch appropriates animals in these poems but does not always treat them in the traditional ways. Spider, for example, originally the troublemaker, is depicted in his poem “Snow Country Weavers” as a healer “weaving threads/ to bandage up the day.” In the poem “Two for the Festival” Fox is not a cunning trickster, but rather an awkward dancer. In “Magic Fox,” Coyote’s cunning cousin has lost his magic, or, more accurately, when he tries his magic, it goes awry—changing horses into fish.
The poem is unrhymed and lacks a mechanical pattern; however, it is alive with assonance and internal rhyme, which make it sing. “Green leaves” and “sleep” ring in the opening lines, along with “grief,” “sleep,” and “dream,” at the end of the poem. The combination of “into fish,” “like fish,” and “in the wind,” at the end of the first stanza, provides a satisfying sound correspondence. These sounds are also onomatopoeic (sounding distinctly fishy), as are the sounds of “magic jangled memories” in the second stanza. The alliteration of “blonde as morning birds, began” contributes to the hypnotic effect of the blond girl’s dance. Because it is somewhat irregular, the meter of the poem cannot be easily scanned; however, the balladlike cadence of the poem reveals itself when “Magic Fox” is read aloud. The pattern consists of approximately three stresses ending in an o vowel rhyme, followed by approximately four stresses and a breath pause.
Bibliography
Charles, Jim. “’A World Full of Bones and Wind’: Teaching Works by James Welch.” English Journal 93, no. 4 (March, 2004): 64-69.
Curwen, Thomas. “The Book of Dreams.” Los Angeles Times, October 1, 2000, p. 7.
Gish, Robert Franklin. Beyond Bounds: Cross-Cultural Essays on Anglo, American Indian, and Chicano Literature. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996.
Lee, Don. “About James Welch.” Ploughshares 20, no. 1 (Spring, 1994): 193-199.
Lee, Don. James Welch: A Critical Companion. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2004.
McFarland, Ron. Understanding James Welch. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2000.
Nixon, Will. “James Welch.” Publishers Weekly 237, no. 40 (October 5, 1990): 81-82.
Saxon, Wolfgang. Obituary. The New York Times, August 9, 2003, p. B6.
Seals, David. “Blackfeet Barrister.” The Nation 251, no. 18 (November 26, 1990): 648-650.
Welch, James. “Interview with James Welch (1940-2003).” Interview by Mary Jane Lupton. American Indian Quarterly 29, nos. 1/2 (Winter/Spring, 2005): 198-211.