A conniving fox deemed too dark for Disney for his thieving, murderous ways is to be reintroduced to a new generation of children, brought to bedtime stories and the big screen in a project from the University of Oxford.

Reynard the fox, a medieval children’s story which fell drastically out of fashion for its cynical, shocking storylines, is to be welcomed back into mainstream culture in a modern retelling which will not shy away from its most disturbing elements.

A project, based on archive material from the Bodleian Libraries and Bristol University, will see a new illustrated children’s book published by the library, and a series of four films made by Aardman, the studio behind Wallace and Gromit, to be screen at a festival in 2020.

The story of Reynard the fox was explored but ultimately rejected by Disney in 1937, when it was looking for a new animated film to make after the success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Notes from production meetings, held in the Walt Disney archives, detail qualms about how to present a hero who was anti-establishment, amoral, and with no redeeming backstory, with the boss himself asking: "I see some swell possibilities in Reynard, but is it smart to make it?"