Mustelids are recently becoming popular as heroic Weasel Mascot characters, but it wasn't always so. Older European works in particular portray weasels as sneaky at best and downright villainous at worst, often as the nemesis of a prey animal protagonist. As a general rule, fictional weasels are cowardly about direct confrontation, but cunning, treacherous and cruel, and sometimes downright Axe [...] [tvtropes.org]