Sanctuary, and Finding a Home for the ‘Urban Fox’ at Christmas Time

Blog by Dr Neil Graffin, Senior Lecturer in Law. 

Note: Some of the reproduced lyrics contain strong language.

In the village where I live, there are two illuminated foxes on display during the festive period. It seems that the fox has become synonymous with this time of year, maybe not to the extent that reindeer or robins are, but they certainly hold a place in our imagination. While the festive fox may appear on Christmas cards, leaving footprints on the snow, their family following in tow, a quick search on the internet reveals that the urban fox also thrives at this time of year. However, far from the festive representations we see on merchandise, we are advised of means of deterring real foxes. It seems the festive fox has a place in our hearts and imaginations at this time of year, but we may not want the real ones near our homes. 

In 2021, the Scottish indie band, Arab Strap, released a song which tells a story of a family of urban foxes trying to find a home in a city. In the song, they experience a culture, not of welcome, but of hostility. The song is a fable – a story which anthropomorphises animals (or objects) to teach about something else – usually morals. In this case, it is an allegory about people who leave their homes trying to find safety elsewhere – including, for example, forced migrants. The first verse begins:

They came in from the country
They were hounded from their homes
They'd always dreamed about the city
With its towers and spires and domes
So the dog fox and his vixen
Vowed to flee their savage fields
To a land of hope and glory
And a future it could yield. 

Aidan Moffat in the band (in my opinion) is one of the most poetic lyricists in indie music today, and we can see that he has not just given thought to how the fable holds together, but the imagery it invokes. The war between the domesticated dog and the urban fox, who exists on the periphery of the city, is invoked in the song. This, I think, symbolises the hostility that can exist within sections of our communities, for example, between those who seek to migrate and those who wish to control migration. 

Moffat describes the foxes being ‘hounded’ - using canine imagery - from their homes. Later we find out this is likely to be because of a conflict (‘They told him of the redcoats, of their fallen, hunted brethren’), which is one reason many forced migrants also leave their homes. Other reasons can include persecution, environmental degradation, or climate change-induced natural disasters. By June this year, the UNHCR have estimated 122.6 million people worldwide have been displaced from their homes for a multitude of different reasons. 

In the next verse, Arab Strap describe how there was no hospitality for the urban fox, again mirroring the experience of many forced migrants in the UK. 

But the city didn't want the foxes, the city didn't care
Their help and hope and heart and hearth they dreamed of weren't there
So they scavenged, and they foraged
Slept from shitty place to places
Among the hostile architecture
And all the hostile faces. 

The use of the word ‘hostile’ I think is definitely deliberate, invoking the notion of former Prime Minister Theresa May’s ‘hostile environment’ – a government policy response to make it difficult for people without regular immigration status to live in the UK. Amongst its many effects, the hostile environment, according to the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, pushes people into poor quality or often dangerous accommodation. 

This verse also invokes a contrast between ‘help and hope and heart and hearth’ (good use of alliteration) that the foxes were hoping for, and the coldness of the having to scavenge and sleep in ‘shitty place to places’. Again, we see parallels for many forced migrants in the UK: homelessness is a growing issue – in 2024 there has been an increase amongst asylum claimants and other migrants by 125%. 

Later in the song, the war between dog and fox continues: 

One night they met a bulldog
He said, "What you doing here, then?"
They told him of the redcoats, of their fallen the hunted brethren
They said, "There is no going home now, the land we love is cruel"
The dog said, "Fuck off back to Foxland, these streets are fucking full"

The words, to me, are carefully chosen. The dog is a bulldog, which has a long-standing cultural association with Britain, and often is used as a signifier for  an exclusionary form of British nationalism. For example, the image of the bulldog has been associated with far-right groups in Britain (the Young National Front, for example, had a newsletter called ‘Bulldog’). We, of course, hear in the last line that the bulldog is very keen that the foxes move elsewhere – invoking the anti-migrant refrain - ‘these streets are fucking full’. 

Later in the songs, signs of British cultural identity are used again, at the tragic end to the fable. Upon the foxes discovering a chicken coop (‘who keeps chickens in the city?’), the foxes are found and beaten to death with a ‘trusty cricket bat’. 

This song strikes me as important to write about during the festive season, not only because of the festive fox, but because we enter a period often associated with hospitality, welcome, and sanctuary. In Christian theology, Mary and Joseph were welcomed into an Inn prior to the birth of Jesus. Popular literature and television are replete with references to festive hospitality. For example, the climatic moment in in Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’, is when Scrooge’s nephew Fred welcomes him into his home with open arms. 

Returning to our song, the chorus asks us to consider those without a home:

There's no rest however far we roam
Somewhere on this earth, we will find home. 

Forced migrants in the UK may have travelled thousands of miles and made very perilous journeys, seeking sanctuary. The festive season may give us pause to reflect on those who seeking refuge, who may have travelled from their homes, to find home in another. 

Lyrics reproduced for educational purposes from ‘Fable of the Urban Fox’ by Arab Strap from the album ‘As Days Get Dark’. Composed by Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton. 

Dr Neil Graffin is a Senior Lecturer in Law and Chair of the Sanctuary Advisory Network (SAN) at The Open University. Find out more: Becoming a University of Sanctuary | OpenLearn - Open University