OMGs, ROTFL!!! Ferret-legging: only in Britain, also the place of origin for shin-kicking contests and worm-wrangling.  :)


With tongue firmly planted in cheek ('cause Italy and the US have their fair share of odd customs and sports),
Sabina
________________________________________
From: Society for The Academic Study of Magic [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Melissa Harrington [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, November 25, 2013 3:55 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] an animal question

Here in the UK we do not have native skunks, though some non native ones are now showing up. I'm not so sure they would have been evident when Yeats was writing. Polecats can be vicious and are not things one would antagonise,  they  decimate hen houses in the country and have usually been more likely spotted in the wilder places. Saki ( H H Munro) was a contemporary of Yeats, and  his fantastic story Sredni Vashtar contextualises the polecat/ferret in the work of another famous and sometimes magical author of the Victorian/Edwardian era. http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rgs/sk-vashtar.html. Ferrets are still kept as pets today,  by farmboys and by men who go rabbitting, and/or who want to show how hard they are by having competitions about who can keep one down their trousers for longest!http://www.newsy.com/videos/bizzare-sport-ferret-legging/

regards

Melissa
----- Original Message -----
From: Robert Mathiesen<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, November 25, 2013 8:41 PM
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] an animal question

Here in the USA I know the word as an old-fashioned rustic term for a skunk, and I've never heard the word used to refer to any other kid of animal.  In the UK and elsewhere (and thus for Yeats) the word may have other referents as well, but not (IMHO) in the USA.



On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 3:04 PM, Arild <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
Wikipedia is a wonderful thing:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polecat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-footed_ferret

Arild
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From: Society for The Academic Study of Magic [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Susan Johnston Graf
Sent: Monday, November 25, 2013 11:28 AM
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] an animal question

I am wondering if my colleagues across the water can help me out with a bit of animal symbolism.  I am working on a Yeats poem, “the Gyres,” and he references a polecat.  I did not know what that is because, as far as I can tell, we do not have them in the US, at least not where I have lived.  We do have weasels, animals with very definite connotations.  My question is whether or not polecats have the same kind of weaselly reputation.  I have heard people refer to unsavory, sneaky, self-interested, back-biting individuals as “weasels.”  Would the same be applied to polecats?  Sorry for this pedantic and not very esoteric question.
Yours,
Susan

Susan Johnston Graf, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of English
Penn State Mont Alto,
Mont Alto, PA 17237