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The Ballad of the Belstone Fox
Libro usado en buenas condiciones, por su antiguedad podria contener señales normales de uso
192 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1970
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
January 19, 2023
!!! SPOILERS FOR THE FOX AND THE HOUND AS WELL!!!!
This book should be renamed: "The Ballad of a Crotchety old British Man". I got this book believing that it was animal xenofiction: it is no more of the genre than "Cujo" is. All we get is a brief glimpse into the minds of the animal protagonists while the majority is told from the view of the huntsman, Asher Smith, and his fellow human counterparts. Needless to say I'm a bit disappointed.
It follows the same vein as Daniel P. Mannix's "The Fox and the Hound": A British huntsmen- who is apparently God's gift to every hound on earth- gets outwitted by the fox that was raised with his dogs. On one fateful hunt things go wrong when Tag-the fox-makes a desperate escape for safety by crossing a train track where the young and promising hounds of Belstone are smooshed by the oncoming train- à la Chief- leading Asher to seek revenge using the fox's hound friend, Merlin as a way to do so.
From here on out I'll be making a list of things I did/didn't like to try and get my point of view across. So let's get into it:
Positives:
Writing- Rook's writing was engaging and easy to get through. One of the reasons I love Animal xenofiction is I love vivid descriptions of nature, which the author does very well here.
Subverted Expectation: I was wholly prepared to have this end in much of the same manner as Mannix's "Fox and the Hound", where Tag definitely meets his doom. Happily, he survives, Asher...not so much. I enjoyed this little twist.
Merlin and Tag's Friendship: I watched a Youtuber dissect "The Fox and the Hound" and he had mentioned "The Ballad of the Belstone Fox" was more akin to the Disney movie than the novel it was adapted from- and I whole heartedly agree. I think this quote sums it up nicely- "two animals who were born to be enemies, yet had grown so close they were in the process of merging, one into the other." - Pg 63.
Negatives:
Asher: I didn't like his character at all, the author kept saying he was a "quiet" and "Soft-spoken" man, but in most of his interactions he was just rude. Especially towards Stephen his fellow huntsman, whom he constantly degraded for every little thing. It became quite tiresome, more so when the other characters spoke so highly of him. In the end Stephen actually admitted that he "loved the old man"... like how? He's been the bane of this man's existence for the entire novel, unwilling to retire from the hunt and disagreeing about Stephen's relationship to his daughter to the point where he's yelling and screaming at his wife if she even mentions it. I hate when the author tells me one thing about their characters and then their character's actions say otherwise.
Cathie and Jenny: My god! The women in this were portrayed horribly! Cathie, Asher's wife, is basically one of his hounds. She adores him to the point that she could never criticize or talk back to him, even when he's at risk of harming himself. Asher is so dismissive of her, and as the story progresses, just ceases to acknowledge her at all. After that, I have to wonder how genuine her affections for her husband actually are. Also, the novel sexualizes Jenny a young girl that ages as the novel progresses, she starts as a 14 year old, whom is groomed by Stephen, who is probably a twenty-something year old man. He goes on lamenting how often he thinks about her when he's in bed and comments on her "half girl body and half woman body" and how attractive he finds it. And everyone is completely fine with this, except Asher, and I don't think it's because he's creeping on his daughter, but more so because Stephen will be his replacement when he retires from the hunt. Gross.
Hunting: I have mixed emotions about hunting, because yes, I think it can* be good for conservation in one aspect, ( little hot take) but most of the problems that hunting tries to solve is a problem that hunting started. Especially in the case of invasive species, where recreational hunting makes things worse, especially in dealing with wild boars for example. In this book, obviously the focus is on traditional fox hunting- where it's 20-30 hounds on a hunt and a couple of terriers for one fox. Just one. Talk about fair. Asher talks about it like he's on some holy mission to help lower the fox population. Which seems incredibly inefficient to dealing with an overpopulation problem, in my opinion. Also it's a little weird how many people find pleasure in killing or watching an animal be mauled to death by a pack of dogs.
Overall I wasn't impressed. I could've missed something, maybe there was a positive message under it all, but to me it was too derived of Mannix's book for me to fully enjoy it. Just go read "Fox and the Hound" instead.
This book should be renamed: "The Ballad of a Crotchety old British Man". I got this book believing that it was animal xenofiction: it is no more of the genre than "Cujo" is. All we get is a brief glimpse into the minds of the animal protagonists while the majority is told from the view of the huntsman, Asher Smith, and his fellow human counterparts. Needless to say I'm a bit disappointed.
It follows the same vein as Daniel P. Mannix's "The Fox and the Hound": A British huntsmen- who is apparently God's gift to every hound on earth- gets outwitted by the fox that was raised with his dogs. On one fateful hunt things go wrong when Tag-the fox-makes a desperate escape for safety by crossing a train track where the young and promising hounds of Belstone are smooshed by the oncoming train- à la Chief- leading Asher to seek revenge using the fox's hound friend, Merlin as a way to do so.
From here on out I'll be making a list of things I did/didn't like to try and get my point of view across. So let's get into it:
Positives:
Writing- Rook's writing was engaging and easy to get through. One of the reasons I love Animal xenofiction is I love vivid descriptions of nature, which the author does very well here.
Subverted Expectation: I was wholly prepared to have this end in much of the same manner as Mannix's "Fox and the Hound", where Tag definitely meets his doom. Happily, he survives, Asher...not so much. I enjoyed this little twist.
Merlin and Tag's Friendship: I watched a Youtuber dissect "The Fox and the Hound" and he had mentioned "The Ballad of the Belstone Fox" was more akin to the Disney movie than the novel it was adapted from- and I whole heartedly agree. I think this quote sums it up nicely- "two animals who were born to be enemies, yet had grown so close they were in the process of merging, one into the other." - Pg 63.
Negatives:
Asher: I didn't like his character at all, the author kept saying he was a "quiet" and "Soft-spoken" man, but in most of his interactions he was just rude. Especially towards Stephen his fellow huntsman, whom he constantly degraded for every little thing. It became quite tiresome, more so when the other characters spoke so highly of him. In the end Stephen actually admitted that he "loved the old man"... like how? He's been the bane of this man's existence for the entire novel, unwilling to retire from the hunt and disagreeing about Stephen's relationship to his daughter to the point where he's yelling and screaming at his wife if she even mentions it. I hate when the author tells me one thing about their characters and then their character's actions say otherwise.
Cathie and Jenny: My god! The women in this were portrayed horribly! Cathie, Asher's wife, is basically one of his hounds. She adores him to the point that she could never criticize or talk back to him, even when he's at risk of harming himself. Asher is so dismissive of her, and as the story progresses, just ceases to acknowledge her at all. After that, I have to wonder how genuine her affections for her husband actually are. Also, the novel sexualizes Jenny a young girl that ages as the novel progresses, she starts as a 14 year old, whom is groomed by Stephen, who is probably a twenty-something year old man. He goes on lamenting how often he thinks about her when he's in bed and comments on her "half girl body and half woman body" and how attractive he finds it. And everyone is completely fine with this, except Asher, and I don't think it's because he's creeping on his daughter, but more so because Stephen will be his replacement when he retires from the hunt. Gross.
Hunting: I have mixed emotions about hunting, because yes, I think it can* be good for conservation in one aspect, ( little hot take) but most of the problems that hunting tries to solve is a problem that hunting started. Especially in the case of invasive species, where recreational hunting makes things worse, especially in dealing with wild boars for example. In this book, obviously the focus is on traditional fox hunting- where it's 20-30 hounds on a hunt and a couple of terriers for one fox. Just one. Talk about fair. Asher talks about it like he's on some holy mission to help lower the fox population. Which seems incredibly inefficient to dealing with an overpopulation problem, in my opinion. Also it's a little weird how many people find pleasure in killing or watching an animal be mauled to death by a pack of dogs.
Overall I wasn't impressed. I could've missed something, maybe there was a positive message under it all, but to me it was too derived of Mannix's book for me to fully enjoy it. Just go read "Fox and the Hound" instead.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 30, 2025
If you're in the mood for some 70's animal rights fiction (and frankly, when am I ever not?) nestled somewhere snugly between The Plague Dogs and The Fox and the Hound is The Belstone Fox. It's a cosy and somewhat predictable read, but the human characters are neatly drawn and the animal protagonists are extremely well done, without any need for anthropomorphisation. The countryside setting is beautifully rendered, the chase finale is exquisitely paced and the scene in which fox Tag leads a pack of hounds into the path of an oncoming train is one of the most gory and genuinely horrifying things I've read in years.
A shame then, that half way through the novel, author David Rook seems to think we'd be more interested in the relationship between young huntsman Steven and his boss's daughter Jenny. Jenny is a hunt-abolitionist, but this is only given the briefest mention in passing, which seems like a waste of a good plot. On the other hand, the best arcs of the story are not those between fox and hound, nor those between Steven and Jenny (not least because he creepily refers to watching her in her school-clothes and waiting until she's old enough not to wear them...) but those between huntsman Asher, groundskeeper Tod and their employer Kendrick, all three of whom have a Ted and Ralph-esque quality to their conversations, and like to quietly confess their love to one another after a few whiskeys.
It's a good read, and a nice reminder of a more brutal time. You know, a time when people in the UK hunted foxes. It's a good job absolutely nobody does that anymore, isn't it? Imagine if people still went out and hunted foxes. Imagine if people were barbaric enough to do that. IMAGINE IT.
A shame then, that half way through the novel, author David Rook seems to think we'd be more interested in the relationship between young huntsman Steven and his boss's daughter Jenny. Jenny is a hunt-abolitionist, but this is only given the briefest mention in passing, which seems like a waste of a good plot. On the other hand, the best arcs of the story are not those between fox and hound, nor those between Steven and Jenny (not least because he creepily refers to watching her in her school-clothes and waiting until she's old enough not to wear them...) but those between huntsman Asher, groundskeeper Tod and their employer Kendrick, all three of whom have a Ted and Ralph-esque quality to their conversations, and like to quietly confess their love to one another after a few whiskeys.
It's a good read, and a nice reminder of a more brutal time. You know, a time when people in the UK hunted foxes. It's a good job absolutely nobody does that anymore, isn't it? Imagine if people still went out and hunted foxes. Imagine if people were barbaric enough to do that. IMAGINE IT.
January 27, 2023
This is the source material Disney mostly based the movie The Fox and The Hound from.
This book is one of the best xenofiction novels I have ever read.
The story follows the life of Tag, an orphaned fox cub who is rescued by a fox hunter named Asher and then raised with hunting hounds.
Tag befriends Merlin, a runt hound pup and the two grow up together.
The behaviors of the animals are portrayed as realistically as possible and I highly recommend it to any animal lovers.
Used copies come in at $300 as it is out of print, I was lucky and found mine in a book sale when a library closed down.
This book is one of the best xenofiction novels I have ever read.
The story follows the life of Tag, an orphaned fox cub who is rescued by a fox hunter named Asher and then raised with hunting hounds.
Tag befriends Merlin, a runt hound pup and the two grow up together.
The behaviors of the animals are portrayed as realistically as possible and I highly recommend it to any animal lovers.
Used copies come in at $300 as it is out of print, I was lucky and found mine in a book sale when a library closed down.
August 19, 2025
It took me until about half-way through the book to realize this was an expanded British version of The Fox and the Hound. That said, I feel like the author tried to do too much. While Tag (Fox) and Merlin (Hound) were well- developed characters, the humans were not so lucky.
October 7, 2022
A hidden gem of realist xenofiction, The Ballad of the Belstone Fox tells the tale of an orphaned fox pup raised alongside a hunting hound for a year, only for their star-crossed friendship to later be put to the test. Well researched in terms of both vulpine behavior and English foxhunting, and featuring a number of interesting and memorable human and animal characters, this charming novel serves as an optimistic, lighthearted mirror to Mannix’s famously bleak magnum opus. [8/10]
April 16, 2026
I'd give it a 2000000/10 if I could. Beautifully written and my favourite book ever.
December 19, 2012
Unusual for a book that is regarded as a children's book in that it hasn't got any children in it at all; if you discount young animals. Is it actually a children's book? The subject matter made it popular with English Departments of the 70s and 80s. It was a time of class debates and fox hunting was up there with school uniform (perhaps the only valid justification for school uniform is that it provided an easy introduction to debating skills) and capital punishment. To see an expert teacher orchestrating a full class discussion was one of the great pleasures of the English classroom. Sadly, it has gone in the general rising of results amidst an equal lowering of standards. Class discussions encourage the development of personal opinions and the right to disagree with anyone else, including the class teacher. As the class teacher has evolved into the class teller, disagreement is obviously to be discouraged.
More of this later.
Most current year 7s would find this book challenging. Not so much the prose but the story and the characters. To be honest, I find both of these something of a weakness; the storyline being driven on by massive mood swings on the part of the two most featured characters. Left leaning teachers might be advised to read the story as its implicit acceptance of hunting as a good and necessary thing, both to control foxes and to teach people their place in the social hierarchy, goes against the anti bloodsport standpoint sought by many.
Its a good story in that it picks on a belter of a central idea; a fox that can outfox the pack; a fox that cannot be caught. The telling of the story is less satisfactory. From the teachers point of view the imagery is often tame and even clichéd. It is strong on the natural world and the nature of hunting. It even implies a certain irrational, dyed in the wool conservatism amongst the hunt followers. The female characters are weak and weakly drawn and there is a rather unpleasant way of regarding them by some characters which the author appears to share.
Ultimately the book stands for ideas championed by The Countryside Alliance, and is as reactionary and outdated. Here I speak as a country boy lest the charge be made that only ignorant townies oppose the Squirarchy. All the troubles in the book are caused by people interfering with the natural order of things: the landed toff gets his own way and fires his huntsman on the spot if he disagrees with him, the huntsman treats his whipper in as an inferior and the whipper in treats the houndsman with contempt. Foxes exist to be hunted and anyone who interferes with this is wrong and will come to no good.
Blimey, it must have some merit if I can find so much I dislike about it and yet still give it three stars.
More of this later.
Most current year 7s would find this book challenging. Not so much the prose but the story and the characters. To be honest, I find both of these something of a weakness; the storyline being driven on by massive mood swings on the part of the two most featured characters. Left leaning teachers might be advised to read the story as its implicit acceptance of hunting as a good and necessary thing, both to control foxes and to teach people their place in the social hierarchy, goes against the anti bloodsport standpoint sought by many.
Its a good story in that it picks on a belter of a central idea; a fox that can outfox the pack; a fox that cannot be caught. The telling of the story is less satisfactory. From the teachers point of view the imagery is often tame and even clichéd. It is strong on the natural world and the nature of hunting. It even implies a certain irrational, dyed in the wool conservatism amongst the hunt followers. The female characters are weak and weakly drawn and there is a rather unpleasant way of regarding them by some characters which the author appears to share.
Ultimately the book stands for ideas championed by The Countryside Alliance, and is as reactionary and outdated. Here I speak as a country boy lest the charge be made that only ignorant townies oppose the Squirarchy. All the troubles in the book are caused by people interfering with the natural order of things: the landed toff gets his own way and fires his huntsman on the spot if he disagrees with him, the huntsman treats his whipper in as an inferior and the whipper in treats the houndsman with contempt. Foxes exist to be hunted and anyone who interferes with this is wrong and will come to no good.
Blimey, it must have some merit if I can find so much I dislike about it and yet still give it three stars.
Read
September 9, 2014Had this book read to me in primary school and it has always stuck with me.
I remember sitting and crying whilst listening.
I always thought of it as an adults book, not a children's one.
Then the Walt Disney film The Fox and The Hound came out and made it less sad and more for kids.
I have just ordered myself a copy to read again as an adult.
Can't wait to relive the emotions.
I remember sitting and crying whilst listening.
I always thought of it as an adults book, not a children's one.
Then the Walt Disney film The Fox and The Hound came out and made it less sad and more for kids.
I have just ordered myself a copy to read again as an adult.
Can't wait to relive the emotions.
January 30, 2015
i really enjoyed this book. i remember seeing the film years ago
February 28, 2012
wish i could rate 3.5 stars.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews