Meaning & Analysis
Foxes or wolves do not hunt near their own den, instead seeking prey at a distance to avoid attracting danger or suspicion to their home.
Insights
Concealment and Self-Preservation
The proverb symbolizes the strategy of distancing one’s misdeeds or risky actions from one’s own base or home, protecting oneself by diverting suspicion elsewhere.
Cunning and Prudence
It highlights the cleverness of those who commit questionable acts far from their own environment, thereby evading detection or reprisal.
Distrust of the Familiar
It warns that harm or exploitation often comes from outsiders, not from those closest to us, because those intent on wrongdoing avoid targeting their own community.
Folkloric and Ethical Resonance
Foxes and wolves, archetypes of cunning in European folklore, are here models for prudent self-preservation: they do not endanger themselves by making trouble close to home. The proverb thus reflects a worldly, almost Machiavellian ethics.
Social and Criminal Commentary
Historically, this proverb has been invoked to describe thieves or wrongdoers who steal far from where they live, illustrating a practical awareness of criminal psychology and the avoidance of suspicion.
Psychological Dynamics
There is a subtle recognition that even those who do wrong often act out of a desire to safeguard what is most precious to them—their own safety, reputation, or relationships—by projecting risk elsewhere.
Rhetorical Devices
Animal Metaphor
By likening human behavior to that of foxes or wolves, the proverb uses vivid animal imagery to crystallize abstract strategies of cunning and concealment.
Irony
It is ironic that protectiveness toward one’s home results in outward harm, complicating the moral dimension of the saying.
Parallelism
The structure equates the behavior of animals with that of people, reinforcing the universal relevance of the lesson.
Transcription
Quotations
The fox will not worry near his bele [shelter, refuge].
A good wolfe will neuer hunt too neare his denne.
A good Wolfe will neuer hunt too neere his owne denne.
The Foxe seldome preyes neere home, nor doth Sathan meddle with his owne.
If he has a haunt, He preys, far off, like a subtle fox.
A wily foxe will not hunt neare his den.
This they do . . . to divert suspicion, that they may prey the farthest from their holes.
(furthest from home).
Where the woolf resides, he makes not his prey.
*To avoid suspicion. Crafty thieves steal far from home.
Foxes prey furthest from their Earths.
Cross References
- See DÜR., I, no. 524.
Annotations
- Note 81, p. 134: The English say the same of the Fox.
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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