One fox had been hunting in the forest for several days, but could not catch anything.
Searching here and there, she could hardly bear the pangs of hunger, and she never succeeded in hunting.
Finally, tired and exhausted, with a dizzy head, the fox sat down by a deep hole.
And then the fox’s blurred gaze saw a white, very white, stripped fat tail of fat. The fox even felt its pleasant taste. She began to strain all her strength to understand if this was a dream. And suddenly the fox’s widened eyes saw a real white tail of fat at the bottom of the pit.
Without thinking, the fox rushed into the hole. She hit her head on something hard and lost consciousness.
Then, having come to her senses, the fox saw that a white stone seemed like a fat tail to her. And the fox realized that now she could not get out of the deep hole. She lost hope of saving her life and, lying at the bottom of the hole, looked at the blue sky.
Suddenly, someone’s shadow appeared on the edge of the pit, and then the fox heard the howl of a jackal.
“Oh, I, the fox famous for his cunning, will lie at the bottom of the pit awaiting death, and this stupid jackal will enjoy life?!.” - the fox thought indignantly and shouted:
- Who are you? Why are you making noise and not allowing the unfortunate woman to calmly eat what she found!
The jackal looked at the bottom of the hole, saw a fox sitting near something white, and asked:
- Lisa, what are you doing there?
- Don't you see? — the fox was amazed, lying with his nose buried in the stone. — I’m eating a fat tail of lamb fat!
Hearing about the fat, the jackal licked his lips and looked carefully at the bottom of the pit. The shiny white stone seemed like a tail of fat to him.
“Fox,” said the jackal, “if you share the lard with me, I will pray to fate that you have a long life and that you never see a lack of food all your life!”
“Okay,” responded the fox, “this fat tail is enough for both of us, go and eat!”
The hungry jackal, like the fox itself, hastily jumped into the hole, but, hitting a white stone, he lost consciousness and fell on his side.
The fox, having forgotten about everything, looked with gloating joy at the jackal who had hit him, laughed loudly.
The loud laugh of the fox was heard by the lion who was passing not far from here.
“Where is the fox, why is she laughing?” - thought the lion, heading towards the hole.
Seeing the lion on the edge of the pit, the fox again remembered her situation and immediately stopped laughing.
“Such difficult days have come to me, and this lion is freely enjoying life! — the fox thought with envy. “No, I won’t allow this!” And, raising her bowed head, the fox humbly said:
- O great padishah! It's good that you came here yourself. I hid a large fat tail of fat for you in this pit, and today I was going to bring it to you myself. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t move him from his place. I even called the jackal for help, but he and I didn’t have enough strength.
The naive lion looked more closely at the bottom of the pit and also saw something large there, similar to a tail of fat.
“Okay, I’ll take it myself,” said the lion and immediately jumped into the hole. But this time the fox failed to laugh at the deceived beast.
Falling onto the cold white stone, the large lion crushed the jackal and the fox with its weight.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru