Sagranella fox-cult

While stationed in southern Italy during the war, Lewis came across accounts of “fox-magic” in Sagranella, a remote village located in the hills behind Benevento.

He noted that the village felt so isolated and archaic that it “seems hardly to have moved out of the Bronze Age.”According to his writings, the local cult ritual involved two primary acts:

• The Ritual Sacrifice: Every year, the villagers would capture a live fox and burn it to death.
• The Display: After the burning, the fox’s tail was severed and hung like a banner from a pole erected at the entrance of the village.

Historians and travel writers often link this specific practice to ancient Samnite or localized pagan traditions in the region, where animals were sacrificed to ward off evil spirits, ensure agricultural fertility, or mark territory.