One rich peasant had a very stingy wife. She was shaking over every penny and didn’t even order the dog to be fed. The dog, hungry and skinny, ran all day through the fields and forests, looking for food.
Met Once a dog met a wolf.
- How thin you are! – the wolf is surprised. “How not to grow thin: the owner doesn’t tell me to feed me at all,” the dog answers.
They both began to think about how to make the food better. Finally the wolf came up with an idea.
“Tomorrow your mistress,” he says to the dog, “will go to pick beans, and you go with her.” She will take the baby with her, and so as not to interfere with her work, she will place him on the edge of the ditch. She’ll start picking beans, and she won’t even be able to see the child, and then I’ll get closer, contrive, grab the child and run into the forest. You chase me, just stumble more often - let the mistress think that you have no strength at all. You will catch up with me in the forest, take the baby and bring it to the owner. Then she will begin to feed you properly.
OK. They did it as they decided. The next day, after lunch, the housewife went to pick beans for dinner and took the baby with her: the little one hurts, you can’t leave him alone at home, and there’s no one to look after him - everyone is in the field. The owner laid the baby on the grass, began to pick the beans herself, and the wolf was already sitting in the willow forest, waiting, and the dog was immediately spinning around in the field.
The hostess bent down, and the wolf jumped from the bushes, grabbed the baby and - into the forest. The child fights and screams, but the wolf holds him tightly. The woman raised her head and froze. Can you catch the wolf? A child died! A woman began to cry, began to wail, and suddenly saw: a dog was chasing a wolf with all its might. The dog is running, but every now and then he stumbles, falls, jumps up again and runs.
“I’m completely exhausted, poor thing,” the woman laments.
The wolf and the dog disappeared into the forest, and the mistress’s hands gave up. But then a dog jumped out of the forest and carried a child in its teeth. The owner, with joy, does not know how to please the dog, what to treat it with. From that day on, the dog began to live a heavenly life. She ate what she wanted and slept as much as she could. You can't imagine a better fate.
The dog did not forget how she used to be hungry and grieved, and still wanted to thank the wolf for his help. And in the fall, in the house where the dog lived, a wedding was celebrated. The dog also invited the wolf to the wedding.
The wolf came in the evening, but he was afraid to go into the house alone. He sits at the gate, waiting for the dog. The dog brought the wolf into the hut and told him to hide under the bed. The dog drags him all sorts of food from the table, but a wolf cannot eat it all.
The wolf ate to his fill, drank a fair amount of intoxication, and now the sea was knee-deep for him. He screamed under the bed in a wild voice, howled, and the guests heard it. Let's have fun here! The guests are having fun: wow, such a bad and drunken wolf is walking with them at the wedding. Some people grabbed a stake, some a stick, and started chasing the wolf from under one bed to another, and they pretty much crushed his sides.
The wolf ran into the forest, and on the way all the hops disappeared from his head. He decided that the dog had set this all up on purpose. And he swore not to make friends with the dog anymore, and even to go to war with it. Otherwise, he doesn’t realize that it’s his own fault: why did he drink, why did he brawl?
A wolf wanders through the forest, gathering an army for himself. Met a bear.
“Won’t you come,” he asks, “to be a commander?” The dog cheated me, I’m going to war against her.
“Okay,” the bear agreed, “I’ll go to you as a commander.” So they go and meet a wild boar. “Come with us,” says the wolf, “we are going to war against the dog.”
“Okay,” the boar agreed, “I’ll go with you.” All three go further and meet a hare. Wolf to the hare:
- Come with us, we are going to war against the dog. Well, everyone knows how a hare loves a dog. The hare did not refuse, he went with them.
The four of them are already walking - a wolf, a bear, a boar and a hare. They meet a fox. Wolf - to her:
- Come with us, godfather, we are going to war against the dog. You should settle scores with the dog this time.
“Come on,” the fox answers, “I’m coming!”
All five of them came to the battlefield and are waiting for the dog with her army. The wolf's warriors are one to one. The wolf is impatient for a fight, but the dog still isn’t.
The dog lived quietly, did not smell trouble, when suddenly he heard: the wolf was coming to war against her. The dog became sad: it’s not right to fight with an old friend, but what can you do if the wolf himself wants it. The dog has no army, he wanders around the yard and hangs his nose.
“What’s wrong with you,” the rooster asks her, “you don’t seem to be walking around like yourself, you don’t raise your head?”
“There’s no reason for me to have fun,” the dog answers, “the wolf is going to war against me, but with whom will I go against him?”
“Take me with you,” says the rooster. - And then okay, let's go. They are walking, and a cat meets them. -Where are you going? - asks. - Yes, fight with the wolf. “Take me too,” the cat asks. “Let’s go if you want,” says the dog. So the three of them went against the wolf.
Meanwhile, the wolf army hid. The animals decided to wait for the dog, attack its army by surprise and defeat it. A wolf climbed into a pile of brushwood, only his tail, as luck would have it, sticks out of the pile. And the wolf has a habit of moving its tail. A dog, a cat and a rooster came up. The cat saw something moving in a pile of brushwood. “Mouse,” he thought and grabbed the wolf by the tail. The wolf started running in fear. The cat also got cold feet and went up the tree. But bad luck - I landed right on a bear. And he will fall to the ground out of fear, and the spirit will be gone from him. The wolf warriors saw their commander lying on the ground, not breathing, and they scattered. So the dog and his friends defeated the wolf army.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru