I have a memory that there was an actual thing called a “fire fox”–a fox whose tail was set on fire, which would then flee through the fields of the enemy, setting them ablaze. In my memory this is connected with Julius Caesar. The existence of the eponymous browser has made any searches on this fruitless.
Am I hallucinating, or was there ever such a thing as a fire fox as a weapon of war?
You may be mentally combining the Cerealia festival where torches were tied to foxes and set to run around a track, with Incendiary Pigs, which are a Roman weapon that was setting pigs on fire and sending them running at the enemy, mainly to freak out war elephants.
Edit: AFAIK, they’ve never been referred to as “fire foxes” though.
I’d assume that the term “firefox” is just a variation of “foxfire”, the mysterious light sometimes seen in the woods and now known to be caused by luminescent fungi. The Wikipedia article says the term derives from the Old French word for “false” rather than the animal called “fox” in English, but notes that foxfire is associated with foxes in folklore. There’s a print by the 19th century Japanese artist Hiroshige that shows fiery foxes gathered around a tree.
The Wikipedia disambiguation page for firefox indicates that the term is used to refer to both red foxes and red pandas, presumably due to their color, although I’ve never heard the term used in this way before.
Cerealia sounds closest to the root of my uncertain memory. Thank you!
Is there any reason to think this is related to the name of the browser?
As far as I can tell, Firefox is named the way it is because of trademark conflicts with other computer-related products and companies. It went Phoenix -> Firebird -> Firefox. My guess is that it was chosen for the alliteration and an attempt to conserve the “fire” part of the name rather than for any historical significance. As Lamia notes, it could be related to “Foxfire”, but I can’t find any evidence one way or another on that. It’s entirely possible one of the people at Mozilla was familiar with the term “Foxfire” and it influenced the name choice, but even if that’s true, it doesn’t seem to me that it was particularly significant in the naming process.
Wikipedia’s History of Firefox article has a brief section on the name. Apparently the project was originally called “Phoenix”, but had to be changed for trademark reasons. Mozilla then tried “Firebird” but there were problems with that too, so they finally settled on “Firefox”. Wikipedia cites a Mozilla FAQ that explains the decision in a bit more detail, and also mentions that the red panda is also known as the firefox.
ETA: If there’s any other cultural significance to the name, I think the 1977 book/1982 movie Firefox is more likely than an ancient Roman festival, although even that’s a bit of a stretch. FWIW I just checked the OED, and all the references to “firefox” in their collected quotations are either quotes from the book/movie or quotes about the web browser.
4/ So he went out and caught three hundred foxes and tied them tail to tail in pairs. He then fastened a torch to every pair of tails,
5/ lit the torches and let the foxes loose in the standing grain of the Philistines. He burned up the shocks and standing grain, together with the vineyards and olive groves.*
Judges 15 (New International Version)
Dunno how the despicable bastard caught 300 foxes. Fortunately, bad things happened to him later.
I was under the impression that the browser name was an allusion to the rare Red Panda, an arboreal, Himalayan animal that looks a bit like a fox, and has fur of a similar reddish brown color. It was once thought to be closely related to the Giant Panda, but that is no longer the case. Wikipedia says it is sometimes known as a “fire cat” (due to its reddish color, presumably), and I think I have also seen it referred to as a “fire fox”. I imagine that expression is pretty much ungoogleable, however.
Isn’t there a creature in japanese folklore that’s a fox with nine tails made of flame?
Fidel Castro’s guerillas during his war of liberation allegedly also used the tail on fire trick - tie torches to a cat’s tail and send him through the sugar cane. I suppose it’s been a known disruption trick since biblical times.
It’s a traditional spirit creature in East Asian mythology. The tails aren’t specifically flame-like, but the Japanese rendition of the nine-tailed fox myth includes the idea that any fox spirit (kitsune) can summon a small fire wisp (kitsunebi 狐火) which looks like a floating lantern… either to mislead and distract (in case of a wicked or trickster fox), or to serve (zenko foxes, servants of the godess Inari.)
Maybe it factors in. Geek culture has a significant Japanophile streak.
I too understood the Firefox Fox to be a Red Panda.
Yes, a Kitsune ( Japanese for Fox ) gains a tail for every hundred years he or she lives. Wikipedia says their tails can generate fire, but not that they are of fire. And they can duplicate any human appearance — presumably they then diminish the tails, as a nine-fox-tailed human would be a dead giveaway.
Ran Yakumo is the most famous, but as with all Touhou folk it is inadvisable to set one on fire. In Ran’s case she might take personal action, which would be unpleasant; or she may call on her mistress, Yukari Yakumo, in which case one would suffer; or she may call on the kitten Chen, in which case one would beg for the sweet release of death.
The Mozilla FAQ I linked to in post #6 says that a firefox is another name for a red panda, but it doesn’t sound like red pandas really had anything to do with why they chose the name. Their explanation for the name is “It’s similar to Firebird. [The previous name of the project.] It’s easy to remember. It sounds good. It’s unique. We like it. And we weren’t able to find any other project or company even remotely similar to a web browser that uses the same name.”
