A fox was running through the forest. She ran and ran and suddenly - bang! - into the hole that the hunter dug on her road. He scurries back and forth across the pit, jumps, spins, spins, but can’t get out to the top.
A woodpecker from a nearby tree saw a fox in a hole and asked:
- What are you doing there, girlfriend?
“I’m digging a well,” answered the red-haired rogue.
“Maybe you can dig for me too?” asked the woodpecker.
“I’ll dig, but first I need to finish this one,” the fox continues to cheat. “Help me lower the frame into the well, then we’ll go dig for you.”
“How can I help you?” the woodpecker did not understand.
“The work is not hard: just throw branches on top for me to cut the log house and that’s all,” the fox explained.
The woodpecker began to help the fox. He will find a suitable branch, hit it with his sharp beak and fly the branch straight into the hole. He hits a new branch and it’s in the hole. So he broke off one tree and set to work on another.
- Well, is work over? - asks the woodpecker.
“Consider it already finished,” the fox answers him. Meanwhile, along the branches - jump-jump! - she jumped up from the hole.
“Well, now let’s go dig a well for me,” the woodpecker reminds her.
“I’ll go,” the fox answers, “but you should have given me the Magarych first.”
The woodpecker agreed. It’s not their custom: when the job starts, the employee is given a magarych.
Together with the fox we went to look for a kvass merchant. We came to a village where a bazaar was going on. It was then that a kvass merchant on his way to the market caught up with them.
“Well, we don’t even need to go to the market,” says the woodpecker to the fox. “Hide behind that bush over there.”
The fox quickly darted under a bush, and the woodpecker flew up to the cart from behind, sat down on a keg of kvass and began to hammer it with its sharp beak. He hammered and hammered - he hammered the barrel right through. Honey kvass flowed from the barrel like a fountain. After this, the woodpecker flew from the barrel onto the head of the kvass merchant and - bale! - with its beak on the forehead. Oh, how angry the leaven seller was with the impudent bird! Jumped off the cart and let's run after the woodpecker. And the woodpecker deliberately flies low above the ground and is almost within reach.
While the brewer was running after the woodpecker, the kvass all leaked out of the barrel. A fox sitting under a bush ran out onto the road and drank its fill.
The merchant ran and ran after the woodpecker, but came back empty-handed.
And the fox met with his friend behind the threshing floors of the village. Woodpecker asks:
- Well, are you drunk?
“I got drunk, and it seems that I even got drunk,” the fox answers, swaying slightly from side to side.
“Then let’s go dig a well,” the woodpecker said again.
“Let’s go, we’ll definitely go,” the fox assures him, “but first you make me laugh.”
What to do, the woodpecker has to fulfill this whim of the red-haired cheat: he really wants to have his own well!
On one threshing floor, two men were threshing lentils. The woodpecker left the fox by the fence, and he flew up to one of the workers, sat on his head and - bale! - with his beak at the very top of the head.
“Oh, you robber!” the worker shouted and asked his comrade: “Nicephorus, hit this bird on the head!”
Nikifor was holding a flail in his hands and hit another man on the head with it. The woodpecker managed to fly away, and the man fell onto the half-milked lentils from such a blow.
The fox, seeing all this, sits by the fence and roars with laughter. I laughed until I cried - that’s how fun it was!
“It’s probably time to get down to business,” the woodpecker reminds her again. “Let’s go dig a well.”
“We’ll definitely go, just be a friend and scare me one last time,” the fox is still cunning.
“Okay, girlfriend,” and this time the woodpecker agrees. “If you really want to be scared, come follow me.”
They walked through the threshing floors and reached the edge of the village. They see a young guy take a horse out of the gate of the last hut and drive it to the river for a watering hole.
“You go and sit by the gate, and I’ll sit above the gate,” said the woodpecker to the fox.
The fox sat down in the open gate, the woodpecker sat on the plank canopy above it and - knock-knock! - began to knock with its beak. At the knock, three of the owner's dogs jumped out of the yard. The greyhounds saw a red fox at the gate - and went to her. The fox ran away, the dogs followed. The little fox-sister runs as fast as she can, but the dogs still begin to catch up with the cheat. The forest appeared. “Well, here,” the fox thinks, “I’ll somehow be able to escape,” and she ducked into the first hollow she came across. The dogs flew up and ran around the hollow, but they couldn’t reach the fox.
The fox is sitting in a hollow, unable to come to his senses due to fright. And when she came to her senses a little, she asked at her feet:
- How did you escape? Were you afraid or not afraid?
- How afraid they were! - the legs answer. - And they rushed with all their might.
Asks the ears:
- And you?
“We, too, rushed, crouching to the neck, at full speed,” the ears answer.
- How did you run? - the fox asks the tail.
“I was running and kept thinking: they’ll catch you, they’ll catch you,” answered the tail.
“Oh, you wretch!” the fox was indignant. “So you wanted the dogs to catch me?!” This is why I’ll give you to the dogs to eat - you’ll know!
The fox said so and stuck his tail out of the hollow. The dogs were just waiting for this. They immediately grabbed the fox by the tail, pulled it out of the hollow and tore it to pieces.
That was the end of the matter.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru