Badger - Popular Culture

Popular Culture

Badger characters are featured in author Brian Jacques' Redwall series, most often falling under the title of Badger Lord or Badger Mother, and the 19th century poem "The Badger" by John Clare describes a badger hunt and badger-baiting. The character Frances in Russell Hoban's children's books is depicted as a badger. A badger god is featured in The Immortals by Tamora Pierce and "The Badger" is a comic book hero created by Mike Baron. Trufflehunter is a heroic badger in the Chronicles of Narnia book Prince Caspian by C. S. Lewis. In Lafcadio Hearn's book Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things there is a short story titled Mujina, which is a shapeshifting badger.

Many other stories featuring badgers as characters include Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Mr. Tod (Tommy Brock), the Rupert Bear adventures by Mary Tourtel, Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows, T. H. White's The Once and Future King and The Book of Merlyn, Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl, Colin Dann's The Animals of Farthing Wood, Richard Adams's Watership Down and Erin Hunter's Warriors. In the Harry Potter books, the official mascot of the Hogwarts house of Hufflepuff is the badger, featuring this animal in the house's coat of arms as well as in the entire schools. The Hufflepuff common room has little underground tunnels leading to the dormitories, all of which have perfectly round doors, like barrel tops (much like a badger sett). In Incident at Hawk's Hill by Allan W. Eckert a badger is one of the main characters.

Badgers are also featured in films and animations: a flash video of "The Badger Song" shows a group doing calisthenics; in Pokémon, Typhlosion and Linoone are based on badgers. Walt Disney's 1973 film Robin Hood, depicts the character of Friar Tuck as a badger.

In Japanese folklore, the badger is a wild creature that sometimes appears as a mischievous being. In Europe, badgers were traditionally used to predict the length of winter. The badger is both the state animal of the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the mascot of the University of Wisconsin's athletic teams. The badger is also the official mascot of Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, as well as that of St Aidan's College at the University of Durham.

In 2007, rumours that British forces deliberately released man-eating badgers near Basra, Iraq, to intimidate the local population were refuted.