In winter, the stoat goes out hunting. He dived under the snow, emerged, stood on his hind legs, stretched his neck, listened, turned his head, sniffed... And suddenly, as if a mountain fell on his back. And the ermine, although small in stature, is brave. He turned around and grabbed the mountain with his teeth - don’t interfere with the hunt!
- Ah-ah-ah! – there was a cry, a cry, a groan, and a hare fell from the ermine’s back.
The hare's hind leg is bitten to the bone, black blood flows onto the white snow. The hare cries and sobs:
- Oooh! I was running from the owl, I wanted to save my life. I accidentally fell on your back, and you bit me...
- Oh, hare, sorry! Please don't be angry, I also accidentally...
The sun has not yet risen, and the ermine has already received a strict decree:
Appear in my village for trial now!
The elder of the local forest, the Dark Brown Bear.
The ermine's round heart skipped a beat, the thin bones were bending with fear... Oh, and the ermine would be glad not to go, but there is no way to disobey the bear.
Timidly and timidly he entered the bear's dwelling.
The bear sits in a place of honor, smoking a pipe, and next to the owner, on the right side, is a hare. He is leaning on a crutch, his wounded paw is put forward.
The bear raised his fluffy eyelashes and looked at the ermine with red-yellow eyes:
- How dare you bite?
The ermine, as if mute, only moves its lips. My heart feels very tight in my chest.
“I... I... was hunting,” he whispers barely audibly.
-Who were you hunting?
“I wanted to catch a mouse, to waylay a night bird.”
- Yes, mice and birds are your food. Why did he bite the hare?
“The hare was the first to offend me; he fell on my back.”
The bear turned to the hare and barked:
“Why did you jump on the ermine’s back?” The hare trembled, tears flowed from his eyes like a waterfall:
- I bow to you to the ground, great bear, an ermine in winter has a back like snow, white... I didn’t recognize him from the back... I was mistaken...
“I was also mistaken,” said the ermine, “the hare in winter is also all white, I didn’t recognize him from his face!”
The old bear was silent for a long time. A large fire crackled hotly in front of him; above the fire, on an iron tripod, stood a golden cauldron with seven bronze ears. The bear never cleaned this beloved cauldron, he was afraid that happiness would go away along with the dirt, and the golden cauldron was always covered with a hundred layers of soot, like velvet.
The bear extended his right paw to the cauldron, touched it slightly, and the paw was already black. With this paw the bear lightly patted the hare's ears, and the tips of the hare's ears turned black.
- Well, now you, ermine, always recognize a hare by its ears.
The ermine, rejoicing that the matter had turned out so happily, began to run, but the bear caught him by the tail. So the tip of the ermine’s tail has turned black!
- Now you, hare, will always recognize an ermine by its tail.
They say that from that time to the present day, a hare and an ermine never collide.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru