The war-theme is dominantly present in medieval Reynard stories. The relation between Reynard the Fox and Isengrin the wolf is more than once described as the great war between two of the main antagonists of the Roman de Renart. In the prologue of the very first medieval Old French story, Branch II, the author introduces it as a terrible war ... From the oldest branch onwards, the tone is set. Reynard stories deal, amongst other themes, with war and peace. The achieving of peace (and therefore eliminating the fox) is one of the main aims of King Noble the lion. ... In this essay I first want to give a short but incomplete survey of some medieval Reynard stories that were linked to the war-and-peace theme. Then I want to concentrate on some twentieth-century Reynard stories that can be related to this theme. - [Author]

Language: English

ISBN: 1-57181-737-9