One day a fox stole a chicken from a peasant. She brought it to her hole, plucked it, but didn’t want to eat it right away. “It’s already evening,” the fox thought, “I’m very tired during the day. I’d rather have a real feast tomorrow, but for now I’ll get a good night’s sleep.” She put the chicken under her head as a pillow and lay down.
She tossed and turned, but couldn’t fall asleep! Then she got up again, felt the chicken and said: “This pillow is too soft - you can’t sleep!” Perhaps it’s better to eat the fattest places, then it will be harder.
That’s what I did: I ate almost all the meat from the sides and a little from the back and lay down again. But this time I couldn’t fall asleep either: it seemed that the pillow had become hard. Then the fox stood up again and said: “Now I will correct my mistake: I will eat less from the fatty places, and more from the skinny ones.”
She ate all the meat that remained on her sides and back and closed her eyes again.
But even the third time sleep did not come. Then the fox thought: “After all, before I didn’t even have a pillow, and I always slept like the dead until sunrise!”
Then she ate the wings and legs and, full, lay down right on the chicken bones. I immediately fell asleep and slept until the morning. And only in the morning she realized: it wasn’t the pillow that was preventing her from sleeping, but the chicken!
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru