One old man brought a live fox from the forest and said to the old woman:
- Throw my old hat into the oven, I brought something for a new one. Here, look,” and pulled the fox out of the bag.
The old woman was just lighting the stove and, seeing the fox, took her husband’s old hat and threw it into the fire. Meanwhile the old man says to the fox:
“Before I let you go to the hat, dance, little fox-sister, make the old woman and I have fun,” and he began to sharpen the knife.
The poor fox looks at the knife, at the old man and the old woman, and sits neither alive nor dead. I looked out the window, saw a road in a field, and beyond the field there was a forest, but how can you escape into that forest?
And the old man had already sharpened his knife.
- Dance, little fox, or I’ll kill you.
“I would dance,” answered the fox, “but I don’t have a good dress.” And without a dress - what kind of dance is this?
The old woman took her girl's dress from the chest and dressed the fox in it. And she looks at her outfit, admires it, but is in no hurry to dance.
“Why aren’t you dancing, sister?” asks the old man.
“I would dance,” the fox answers, “but I don’t have a hushpu* on my head.”
The old man and the old woman put a hushpa on the fox's head. And even now she looks at the decorations, but she doesn’t dance either. Then the old man and the old woman said in one voice:
- Stop admiring, fox, dance, why don’t you dance?
“But don’t you see? I don’t have a monist on my neck,” the fox answers.
The old woman hung her monisto around her neck, but the fox did not dance:
- We should also have bracelets.
And as soon as they gave her the bracelets, she became cheerful, went out into the middle of the hut, and stood up on her hind legs.
The old man took out a harp, began to play, and the fox began to dance. At first it walked quietly, slowly in a circle, and then faster and faster. Only an elegant dress flashes, and the hushpu and the monist call. The old woman forgot about the stove, looks at the fox dancing, and claps her hands.
“Come on, have fun, little fox-sister!” the old man also encourages the dancer, and is almost ready to start dancing with her.
Whatever she did, no matter what funny knees the fox threw out. The old man and the old woman look at the dance and can’t get enough of it.
The dancer became hot, and she said:
- To keep the door open,
And the window should not be closed.
The old woman immediately rushed to open the door, and the old man opened the window: what a pity: if only the little fox-sister danced more merrily!
And the little fox jumped and danced a little more, and - yurk! - through the open door. Only the old man and the old woman saw her.
And the old man was left without a hat: the old one burned in the stove, and the new one went into the forest.
[Khushpu is a woman’s festive headdress, decorated with silver coins and beads.]
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru