Once the wolf had eaten his fill of carrion, he stretched and thought: “Why am I still sinning and sinning, I need to think about saving my soul: I’ll go to Jerusalem and become a monk.”
I thought about it and got down to business. He remembered God and hit the road, straight to Jerusalem.
He walks, and a heifer meets him.
- Great, chick! - the wolf cried.
- Be healthy, wolf! - says the heifer. - Where are you in a hurry, what are you doing?
- I want to become a monk. I'm going to Jerusalem to save my soul.
“Have a nice journey,” said the heifer. The wolf parted with the heifer and moved on. He saw two sheep grazing in the meadow.
- Hello, sheep! - the wolf shouted.
- Hello, wolf! - say the sheep. -Where are you going, how far are you going?
“And I, sheep, am going to Jerusalem, I will become a monk, I want to save my soul, I have accumulated a lot of sins, it has become hard to bear them.”
- Have a nice trip! - the sheep admonished him. The wolf passed by the sheep and moved on. He’s walking, and a donkey meets him. And the donkey blessed the wolf and bade him farewell. The wolf is coming to Jerusalem. Walked, walked, got there. The wolf got hungry.
And Jerusalem stands by the water. A wolf came up, looked from the shore, and saw that there were many churches, and here and there monks were scurrying around with mugs in their hands. The wolf thought: “Why did I drag myself here? And they won’t let me, a wolf, into the church. I’ve become completely stupid, I didn’t touch either the heifer or the sheep, I let him go, and the donkey too.” The wolf turned back and went to look for the heifer, sheep and donkey. And indeed, I met that donkey. The wolf doesn’t even say hello, he walks straight towards the donkey and opens his mouth. The donkey was surprised:
“You went to Jerusalem to save your soul, and now you want to eat me?”
“When your stomach is empty, there is no time for Jerusalem,” says the wolf. “Get ready, I’ll eat you now.”
The donkey said:
- Okay, eat. Only my poor owner spent money on me yesterday, shoed me, at least take off the horseshoes so as not to ruin the owner twice as much.
The wolf grabbed the horseshoes with his teeth and wanted to tear them off, but the donkey kicked him, knocked the “monk” off his feet, knocked out all his teeth and ran away. They only saw him.
The wolf barely caught his breath, stood up and grumbled:
- Well, what kind of blacksmith am I, I took up horseshoes, that’s what I need!
The wolf trudged off to look for the sheep. He goes and actually meets sheep. The wolf jumped up:
- Now I’ll eat you both! The sheep stopped him and said:
- This is the meadow of our owners. They recently divided and they divided us, one went to one, the other to the other, but this meadow has not yet been divided. So we walk around and don’t know where to graze. Do a good deed, help us share it, and then at least eat us.
“How will I divide it,” asked the wolf, “what kind of land surveyor am I?”
“And you stand in the middle, we’ll run, whoever gets to you first gets to graze in this meadow.”
Became a wolf. The sheep ran, hit him with all their might, and almost ran over the poor wolf. The wolf fell, and the sheep ran, and their trace disappeared.
Somehow the wolf got up, dragged himself to look for the heifer, walked, scolded himself:
- Why did I interfere in my own business, what kind of land surveyor am I? Why didn’t he immediately tear off their fat tails?
The wolf-monk got to the heifer, walked straight at her and said:
- I'll eat you now. The heifer said:
- Okay, eat it, what should you do? Just do a good deed: I really love all kinds of singing and playing. They say you sing well! Sing something, and then eat me.
The heifer went, led the wolf up the mountain, and prepared to listen.
The wolf sat down and howled. The heifer listened and listened, crept up to the wolf from behind, butted him well and threw him off the cliff, and she began to run.
Beaten and crippled, the wolf barely made it to his hole, sat down and whined:
-Where am I going? And why did I decide to save my soul? What kind of blacksmith am I, that I decided to unshackle a donkey, and what kind of a land surveyor am I, that I was going to divide the field for sheep, and which kind of me is a singer, that I dragged myself after a heifer? If someone were here to give me a good beating, it would serve me right!
And in the wolf’s hole one elder was hiding. He heard the wolf, came out of the hole and started hitting him with the club as hard as he could.
The wolf ran away and thought: “In this world, even at the threshold of your home, you can’t say anything.”
The headman learned this tale from a wolf, the headman told me, and I retold it to you.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru