Yes--something like that. She lived in a manor house as a child and was allowed to join in a hunt for the first time when she was 13 years old. As it was her first hunt, she was "marked" with the blood of the fox (apparently the paw was cut off and the end was touched to her face--so both right and left cheeks were marked with blood). She told me she was not to wash her face until that blood wore off--and vividly remembers attending a ball that evening in a white organza gown.

Sounds very bizarre to little old me, but she remembers this as a very exciting ritual in which she was officially accepted as an adult in the family (no longer just one of the children. Heck--it sounds far more interesting than what I got to celebrate that "rite of passage" into adulthood!). So, vulpes vulpes must have some hint of this ritual's significance somewhere in the proving, right? That's what I was trying to discern.

I also wonder whether this kind of ritual was commonly practiced--or whether this was just what was done in her family. I've never read about that before, but my friend says that the practice is very old.

Divina