More than once the fox visited one man’s chicken coop, he wanted to eat some chicken, but he still couldn’t. The rooster will hear the rustling sound and begin to crow, and the dogs will run to the rooster’s crow and chase the fox out of the yard.
So the fox once figured out how to deceive the rooster. The chickens were rummaging through the potatoes in the garden, looking for all sorts of insects. The fox dressed up as a nun, took a rosary from burrs and went to the chickens. She came up and said:
- Hello, servants of God!
- Hello, mother! - the chickens responded. -Where is God coming from?
- Yes, I’m coming from the desert, from the Pyatnitsky Monastery, on my way to the holy mountains, going to venerate the holy relics. Come with me.
“No, mother, we won’t go anywhere from our house,” answered the rooster, “we don’t need to pray, we have no sins.”
- Oh, you, such a sinner, such an atheist, how dare you say that you have no sins? After all, you, cockerel, are a big sinner, the enemy has misled you. Just think, you have so many sins that you can’t even put them in a bag, and as soon as the Lord God tolerates you!.. After all, according to the law, you are supposed to live with only one wife, but you have more than a dozen of them. For such a great sin, you need to go around all the holy places, and then you will not pay off all your sins. Why aren't you ashamed? Go, I’ll confess to you, God will reduce half your sins.
The rooster did not want to approach the fox, so he stopped. And the fox says:
- Why are you shy, cockerel? I wish you well. Confess, servant of God, otherwise you won’t find a place for yourself in the next world. You will boil in the resin day and night, you will never get out of there forever!
The rooster was afraid of eternal torment and agreed to confess. He approached the fox, bowed his head, and she grabbed him by the wings and said:
- You are not worthy, cockerel, to live in this world. For your grave sins, I must put you to death, otherwise you will never atone for your sins and will only lead chickens into sin.
The rooster sees that he is in trouble and begins to think of ways to deceive the fox.
The chickens ran away into the yard one after another, but the rooster remained in captivity. The rooster began to persuade the fox:
- Let me go, mother, I won’t sin again.
- What are you worrying about, little cockerel? Does it matter whether you die today or tomorrow?
“Yes, I know, you have to die once, but you see what it’s like: all the poultry have conspired to found a nunnery - chickens, ducks, geese will be tonsured as nuns, and they chose me as a deacon for my clear voice.” I would like to serve God, maybe he will forgive me my sins. Yes, besides, the birds instructed me to find the abbess: would you be so kind, perhaps you would agree to become the abbess?
- Why not! I visited monasteries, I know the monastery rules.
“Well, that’s good, you stay here, mother, and I’ll go and tell my friends that I’ve found the abbess, and the ktitor and the ktitor’s assistant will immediately come for you, they’ll come to an agreement with you.”
The fox let go of the rooster and thought to herself: “Now that I’ve finished eating, now the whole bird won’t leave me!”
The rooster came to his yard, saw the dogs and said:
- Run quickly to the garden, see what kind of trouble has appeared there? Some nun came and wanted to strangle me.
The dogs rushed to the garden and straight to the fox. The fox got scared, started running, threw off her cassock - and went to the river. She ran and swam across the water. The dogs are behind her. The fox, having crossed to the other bank, ran into the cucumber ridges, took off the scarecrow’s hat and scroll, quickly put it on himself, jumped out from behind the bush and incited:
- Bite! Bite! Hold her! Hold it! Dogs ask:
- Have you seen a fox, man?
“I saw that she just ran through and went into that wood over there.”
The dogs rushed as fast as they could in pursuit. Meanwhile, the fox hid in the reeds. The dogs ran into the forest, sniffed and sniffed, and returned home. The fox, seeing a boat on the shore, got into it and swam down the river. The dogs, having returned from the chase, had already swum across the river. The fox saw the dogs and said:
- Well, have you caught up with the fox?
- No, they didn’t catch up, she hid somewhere. How she sank into the water, damned, nowhere to be seen. And the disguised fox says:
“You dogs are not worthy of tearing apart a fox.” She is devout, she has visited all the monasteries, visited all the holy places, and she has a husband, not like you - you run around in packs... You, sinners, should be drowned!
The dogs listened and listened to what the fake man was saying, and then swam further. And the fox chased them on a boat and wanted to drown them. The dogs see that the shore is still far away, there is no strength to swim, they rushed to the boat to cling to it. And the fox began hitting the dogs on the heads with an oar and drove them away. The dogs floundered and floundered in the water until they drowned. The fox moored to the shore, got out of the boat and headed home.
Having waited until nightfall, the fox moved again to the chicken coop: now she walked bolder, she knew that there were no dogs, they had drowned. She went up to the chicken coop, looked, and saw that the chickens were sitting high up, not moving, and fast asleep. The fox hovered around the chicken coop until dawn, when the rooster woke up and cried:
- Ku-ka-riku!
The fox did not go to the chicken coop, but said from around the corner:
“Aren’t you sleeping, little cockerel?”
- No.
“Then fly to me, I’ll tell you how we punished your enemy yesterday.” You apparently thought it was a nun, but no. Go, I'll tell you everything.
It seemed to the sleepy rooster that the dog was talking to him, and he boldly flew off the roost, and then jumped out of the chicken coop. And behind the chicken coop, instead of a dog, there was a fox. The rooster hit the fox in the teeth. The fox firmly grabbed the rooster by the throat with her teeth and rushed from the yard to the vegetable gardens and beyond.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru