Once upon a time there was an old man and an old woman, and they had a mischievous black cat. The old woman loved the cat. But soon she died. The old man and the cat were left alone.
After the death of the old woman, there was no one to feed the cat: the old man did not love him. And the cat decided to get his own food.
The cat began to climb into the neighbors' cellars and cages and eat their butter, sour cream and drink milk.
One day, a neighbor caught a cat while he was drinking her milk. She grabbed the cat and carried it to the old man:
- Here, grandpa, is your cat! Do whatever you want with him, but don’t let me see him again! Look, he got into the habit of stealing from me...
The old man listened to his neighbor. Needless to say: the cat was a thief, but the old man regretted killing him. He put the cat in a bag and carried it into the forest.
The old man walked for a long time. One day went by, another went by. Finally the old man reached the mountain and let the cat out of the bag.
“You’ve caused a lot of trouble, mischief maker, stay here.” Live as you want,” said the old man and went to his home.
The cat remained in the forest, looked around and went downhill. During the day the cat was bored in the forest, and when night came, he got scared. His fur stood on end. He meowed in a scary voice. He walks, looks around and meows, and his eyes glow green. The cat met a hare.
“Where are you going, cat?” asks the hare.
- Mmm-y, mm-y-y! I’m going to devour all the animals in the forest!” answered the cat.
“I hope he doesn’t eat me,” the hare thought in fear and galloped away from the cat as fast as he could. Soon the hare met the fox.
- What happened, buddy? Why are you so afraid? Where are you running, handsome bunny? - asked the fox.
“There’s a cat walking along the mountain in the forest over there.” He says: “I will devour all the animals in the forest.” I ran away from him...
The fox heard such terrible news and was also scared.
“Let’s run together!” said the fox and ran along with the hare.
They ran for a long time. They met a gray wolf.
“Where are you running, friends?” the wolf asked them.
“Over there in the forest, on the mountain, a terrible cat is walking around, wanting to devour all the animals in the forest,” answered the hare and fox.
The wolf was also very scared and ran with them. The three of them ran for a long time. Finally they met a bear.
-Where are you going, friends, what happened? Isn't there a hunter coming?
They replied that a terrible cat was coming and devouring all the animals in the forest.
“Where are you running?” asked the bear.
“We just need to save ourselves from the cat,” the hare, fox and wolf answered in one voice. “And we don’t even know where we’re running!”
- Well, then, I’ll run with you too! - the bear roared in fear.
The four of them ran for a long, long time, finally got tired, exhausted and stopped to rest under a tree.
- Isn’t it better, friends, to cook some meat and invite the cat to visit? - says the bear.
Everyone agreed. The bear went for meat, the wolf for water, the fox for firewood, and the hare went to invite the cat to visit.
Soon the bear dragged the bull, the wolf brought water, the fox brought firewood, and they began to cook the meat. The meat has been cooked for a long time, but the hare and the cat are still missing.
All the animals became scared.
“Apparently, the cat ate the poor hare and is now coming here,” they decided and began to hide in all directions.
The bear climbed a tall tree, the wolf dug a hole in the bushes, hid there and covered himself with yellow fallen leaves, and the fox hid under a pile of brushwood.
Meanwhile, the hare found the cat in the very place where he first saw him.
Trembling with fear and not coming close to the cat, the hare shouted to him from afar:
- Hey! All-powerful cat!.. - And the hare could not add anything more out of fear.
The cat heard the hare's cry, looked at him with his green eyes and ran straight to the hare.
“Ugh! He’s running to eat me!” thought the cowardly hare and immediately fell dead.
And the cat ran on. The cat heard the delicious smell of meat and approached the place where the bear, wolf and fox were cooking meat and waiting for the guest.
The cat ran up to the meat and began to eat greedily. But the bull brought by the bear was old, and the meat was hard and undercooked. The cat ate and snorted loudly.
The fox was frightened by the cat's snorting, wanted to hide even better, fidgeted and pinched its tail in the brushwood.
The cat heard a crunch in a pile of brushwood, thought there was a mouse there, and rushed to the brushwood.
And the fox was afraid that the scary cat would tear her apart, she jumped out from under the brushwood, tore off her pinched tail, and ran away, fleeing from the scary cat.
And the cat himself was afraid of the fox; He, like a lynx, rushed into the bushes and grabbed the wolf’s head and eyes with his claws.
“Oh, he wants to eat me!” the wolf howled in fear and pain and rushed as fast as he could out of the bushes.
The cat was scared to death of the wolf and, like a squirrel, rushed to the tree on which the bear was hiding.
The bear saw a cat climbing towards him and fell to the ground in fear.
And the cat, who frightened the wild animals so much, sits on a tree and can barely breathe from fright.
The bear, wolf and fox ran away unconscious in different directions.
Finally, they found each other in the forest and sat down to rest together at the bottom of a remote ravine.
- Well, how are you alive? - the bear asks the fox and the wolf.
“I’m alive, but I don’t have a tail—the cat tore it off,” the fox answers.
“I, too, remained unharmed, but I’m barely alive from the claws of this cat; “He tore all the skin on my head,” said the wolf.
“How are you feeling?” the wolf and the fox asked the bear.
“But I only broke my ribs when the cat knocked me out of the tree,” the bear answered, groaning.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru