One Fox was always on the prowl by herself. She was tired of loneliness, and she decided to find a brother-in-law.
A fox walked along the road, and a bear met her.
“Let’s become brothers,” the fox tells him. “Okay,” the bear answers. - But what will you bring into the house? This is how I get a sheep every day.
“And I’ll drag in a chicken,” says the fox. The bear liked this, and they became brothers. The bear will drag the sheep, and the fox will separate the fat, melt it and pour it into a clay pot.
- What are you doing, fox? - the bear asks her. - What do you need fat for?
“My brother,” the fox answers him, “we don’t always have a full stomach.” Well, when the day comes that we won’t get a sheep or a chicken, what should we do then? If we don’t prepare in reserve, there will be nothing to eat.
“Okay,” says the bear, “but you don’t eat without me.”
One day the fox and the bear could not get any food and sat hungry.
“Let us deceive the bear and we will eat our fill alone,” thought the fox.
That’s what she did, and then she climbed onto the flat roof and, well, ran back and forth on it: it was a stormy day, so it was as if she was trampling down the ground so that the rainwater wouldn’t leak. Just no, no, he stops and shouts:
- I don’t have time, I can’t go! The bear heard this and asked:
- What is it, why are you shouting there?
“They’re calling me for a christening, but I don’t have time,” answered the fox.
“What are you doing, go quickly,” the bear tells her. The fox really left. Only there were no christenings there, and she, of course, knew about it.
She returned home and said to the bear:
- Also, it’s called a christening! They baked one unleavened cake and rolled it up and down, almost rolling it to the priest’s threshold: there was another wine glass, but it was empty, there was no wine in it.
And on the second day the fox said to the bear:
“I walked past one wedding, they called me, but now go, I’ve already been to a christening.”
The bear trudged along, but where was the wedding? There was no sign of a wedding.
A bear came to a shepherd and said:
- Give me something to eat, it turns out you are having a wedding here.
- Get out of here, you stinky one! - the shepherd grabbed the stick, - what kind of wedding do you have - and hit the bear once on the neck.
The bear began to run away as soon as it saved its skin. And the fox emptied one pot, filled it with ash and put it in its original place. The bear came and said:
- I'm dying of hunger. Get out the pot of fat and let's eat. What other rainy day are you saving it for?
“You’re blowing hard,” says the fox, “blow off the ash first, I sprinkled the fat on top with it, and we’ll eat.”
The bear blew as hard as he could, dusting his eyes with ash, and while he was rubbing them with his paw, the fox walked out the door and disappeared. Otherwise, they say, the bear will eat me.
She ran, dug a hole a little further away and sat down next to it, all smeared in the earth. And just then the bear comes and asks her:
“Didn’t you see, no one passed here?”
- Yes, one fox ran by. They say she had a fight with a bear, so she ran away.
So the fox drove the bear away, returned home, ate the second pot, filled it with bear manure, and again sprinkled ash on top. She was just about to leave when the bear showed up. What's a fox to do, now she can't escape the bear! And she decided to use a trick:
“Here’s a pot of fat for you, uncle, eat, you’re probably hungry.”
“Only now blow on the ashes,” says the bear, “otherwise I was almost left without eyes.”
“I don’t have enough strength,” the fox answers, “you’d better blow it yourself again.”
“Well, no,” answered the bear, “now it’s your turn to blow!”
The fox blew a little, but did not blow away the ash, and said to the bear:
“My mouth is not fit to blow so hard, I have all my strength in my tail.” But you can't blow your tail.
“But I can’t even breathe,” says the bear, “or I’ll be left without eyes if ash gets into them again.”
- Open your eyes wider and blow like that.
The bear tensed up, widened his eyes and blew. The ash became more dusty than ever and burned his eyes. He rubs them, rubs them with his paws, but how can you help!
And the fox then says to him:
- Wait, I’ll run and get a doctor.
The fox left, and when she returned, she brought the shepherd with a gun and showed him the bear.
The shepherd killed the bear, took its skin and meat, and promised to give the fox a chicken every three days. Once he gave, another time he gave, and then he refused. Just as the fox asked the shepherd:
don’t deprive me of my chickens, otherwise God will punish you, but the shepherd seemed not to have heard her words at all.
That shepherd had milk lambs in his shed. A fox got into the habit of entering the sheepfold and carried away a lamb every day.
Every day the shepherd misses one lamb and has no idea where they go. In the end, he closed one entrance to the shed, and set a trap near the other, which was open.
A fox crept up to the shed at night, darted into the open entrance and - bang! — fell into a trap.
The next day the shepherd enters the sheepfold and sees a fox caught in a trap. He grabbed her by the tail, pulled her out and was about to tear off her skin when she turned to him with the words:
- Wait, man, listen to me. Isn't there a judge here to judge us?
They brought two shepherds, and the fox addressed them with a complaint:
- Listen to me, righteous judges! God never gave me a house or an estate from the time I was born. So I’ve been wandering around the world all my life! Wherever I meet a mouse or a chicken, that’s how I make my way. During the day you can’t show your nose to me, everyone will covet my fur coat, so I run around at night in God knows where. I was walking in the dark just now and accidentally wandered into a shed. I didn’t have any business there. And the shepherd dragged me out of there and tried to kill me. Now let's see how you judge us. My life and death are in your will.
The judge acquitted the fox. She lifted her tail and ran into the field.
The fox lives to this day and sends blessings to the shepherds.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru