Research Files: The Teumessian Fox and Paradoxes

Disclaimer: I am not a myths scholar. I am simply inspired by mythology and how it shapes human behavior and stories. The post below is a synthesis of my research about the Teumessian Fox and paradoxes, as well as personal thoughts and should not be taken as verified fact, though I have done my best to ensure its accuracy. My sources are included at the end of the post.

The Myth of the Teumessian Fox and Laelaps

The legend of the Teumessian Fox and Laelaps the dog is a Greek myth from the time when Creon was regent of Thebes. Displeased with the people of Thebes, a god sent the massive fox to punish the city. Sometimes this act is attributed to Dionysus. The fox wreaked havoc on the city, devouring people in its path. The worst part for the people of Thebes, though, was that the Teumessian Fox was destined to evade its hunter, so despite their best efforts, the fox could be neither captured nor killed.

(Image: found at https://riordan.fandom.com/wiki/Teumessian_Fox)

Some accounts of the myth claim that after some time, Creon issued a decree that a child would be sacrificed to the fox once a month to placate its bloodlust.

When Amphitryon came to Thebes to raise an army for his war, Creon offered him military aid if Amphitryon could rid Thebes of the Teumessian Fox.

Because of the fox’s divine gift to never to be caught, Amphitryon failed in his mission. Until he remembered another divine creature, Laelaps the dog destined to catch everything it chased. Amphitryon brought the dog to Thebes and set it loose after the fox.

This created a paradox—the fox destined to never be caught being chased by a dog destined to always catch its query.

Realizing the creatures were set to exist in a never-ending chase loop, Zeus turned both creatures to stone and then sent their images into the sky in the form of constellations. The fox and the dog continue their chase sequence in the night sky still.

(Want more Greek myths? Check out this related post: The Gorgons)

Temporal Paradoxes and How Popular Media Deals with Them

The Teumessian fox myth is a situational paradox, but other kinds exist. Paradoxes are an interesting concept in fiction, especially for those of us writing about time travel and changing time. How do we deal with temporal paradoxes? Do we try our best to create rules that prevent their creation? Or do we embrace the paradox and explain it away somehow?

One example from modern popular culture is Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. *Spoiler alert!! Click the link below to keep reading but avoid spoilers*

(Skip the spoilers and jump to the next section of the article)

So, in HP #3, Harry and Hermione travel back in time to save Buckbeak the Hippogrif from execution. Rowling gets around the confusing mess of paradoxes by using a causal loop. It is impossible to tell the origin of the actions since the actions—like the rock that flies through Hagrid’s hut’s window to warn Harry and Hermione the minister is arriving and Harry saving himself and Sirius from the dementors—had to have existed in the past in order for the future to happen, but also would not have happened if Harry and Hermione had never traveled back to the past. It’s like when Harry says something along the lines of, “I knew I could do it because I had already done it.” He had the confidence to produce his patronus because his past self did it, but the only reason his past self did it was because his future self had the confidence to do it.

Confused yet?

Me too.

But although causal loops are like the “which came first, chicken or the egg?” they are handy in explaining how characters can go back in time without ripping the entire universe to paradoxical shreds.

(More about paradoxes here)

(I’m not a super Star Trek fan, so I can’t speak to the franchise’s use temporal theory, but I found this article fascinating.)

Altering Time in the Sezna Seer Universe

I must be a crazy person, because I decided it would be a good idea to tackle time theory and temporal paradoxes in my very first book. *rolls eyes* I can’t ever do anything the easy way.

In Talullah’s world in my Sezna Seer Series, I had to think long and hard about how I wanted time to function and how time travel would affect people and the world at large. Here’s a crude picture of what I came up with:

So. We have the blue line which is the present. The red points are fixed. No matter what happens or what changes, these events will happen. These are like the points of destiny. But as a character is booping along the present, they make choices (the green lines)—free will—which set them on a different path forward. When a character changes something of significance in the past (purple stars), a new blue line is created—a new present. That new blue line will still connect to the red fixed points, but it will pass through a different set of events along the way. But the other line doesn’t cease to exist. A parallel universe is created in which the characters continue to follow their original, unchanged trajectory. I imagine these threads of time not as a straight line but as ones that curve around each other, a bit like a rollercoaster track. Since I can’t draw in 3D, I had to settle for a straight line *shrug*.

In Amethyst in Ashes, my protagonist, Tallulah, learns how to feel the threads of time. Some of the threads are loose and unknotted—these are the throwaway decisions people make daily, like what shirt to wear or what kind of tea to drink. They are decisions, but they have little to no effect on how life progresses overall. Changing those events doesn’t create a new timeline. On the other hand, some events, like whether or not a person meets and interacts with another character can have huge consequences and does change a person’s trajectory, and as a result, the lives of others who are close to them or whose life events are intertwined with theirs–whether or not they realize it.

My goal was to ensure that my characters could affect the past, and therefore the future, without obliterating themselves and without creating a soupy mess of confusion. I don’t know if I succeeded, but I definitely tried.

(Nerd out about temporal paradoxes here)

How to Use the Teumessian Fox Myth as Inspiration

There’s a lot to unpack here. We jumped from Greek myth to paradox to time theory pretty fast. Here are some things to think about if you want to use the story of the Teumessian Fox and Laelaps to inspire your own work:

What flavor of vengeance could your world’s gods or villains impart on your protagonist?
If your characters had to face a giant monster, how would they deal? Compromise like Creon? Get creative and resourceful like Amphitryon?
What kinds of paradoxes could exist in your world and how would it affect the way your characters exist within it?
Play with the concept of time. What does it mean to change the past or present or future? How can people do it? What is its value?
Or, it could be even as simple as a chase. How does the hunter catch their prey? How does the prey avoid capture?
Is divine intervention possible, and if so, what are the consequences?
How are constellations created and what is their significance to your characters?