One peasant had a faithful dog; his name was Sultan. Now he had grown old, his teeth had fallen out, and now he had nothing with which to bite. Once a peasant stood with his wife at the threshold and said:
“And tomorrow I’m going to shoot the old Sultan, he’s become no good anymore.” And the wife took pity on the faithful dog and said:
“But he served us honestly for so many years, and we should feed him now out of mercy.”
“Eh, what are you saying,” said the husband, “it’s clear you don’t have enough intelligence.” He doesn’t even have teeth, not a single thief is afraid of him; He has already served his service, he can clean up for himself. When he served us, we fed him well.
And at that time the poor dog lay stretched out in the sun, and heard all this, and he became sad that tomorrow his last day was coming. And he had a good friend, and it was a wolf. So the dog snuck into the forest in the evening and began to complain about his fate.
“Listen, kumanek,” the wolf told him, “calm down, I’ll get you out of trouble.” I've thought of something. Tomorrow at dawn your master and his wife will go to mow hay, and since there will be no one to stay at home, they will take their little child with them. While working, they always place the child in the shade behind the bushes. And you lie down next to him,
as if you were going to guard him. I will come out of the forest and drag the child away: and you rush after me, as if you want to take him away from me. I will drop the child, and you will bring him back to his parents, and they will think that you saved him, and they will be so grateful to you that it will not be that they will do anything evil to you, but, on the contrary, you will be in great favor with them, and from that time on you will not be denied anything. The dog liked this advice; planned - done. When the father saw that the wolf had dragged the child away and was running with him across the field, he began to scream; but when the old Sultan brought him back, he began to stroke the dog and say:
“Now I won’t let you offend, you will feed from me out of mercy until your death.” “And he says to his wife: “Go home quickly and make the old Sultan some delicious stew, because it’s hard for him to bite, and take the pillow from my bed, I’ll give it to the Sultan, let him sleep on it.”
And from that time on, the old Sultan began to live so well that there was nothing better to wish for.
Soon after that, the wolf came to visit him, he was glad that everything had turned out so well.
“Well, kumanek,” he says, “you’ll have to pretend once that you don’t see anything, and I’ll find an opportunity and steal your owner’s fat lamb.” If we live on our own these days, we'll have a hard time.
“No, don’t count on that,” the dog answered, “I will remain faithful to my master, I don’t agree to such a thing.”
The wolf thought that he was just saying that, and crept up at night to drag away the sheep. But the faithful Sultan divulged to the owner about the wolf’s plan, and he lay in wait for him and seriously crushed his sides with a flail. But the wolf managed to escape, and he shouted to the dog:
“Wait, bad comrade, you’ll repent of this!”
The next morning the wolf sent a wild pig and ordered her to call the dog into the forest to settle the matter there. And the old Sultan did not find anyone to help him, except for the cat, and even that one was missing one leg. So they went out together, and the poor cat hobbled into the forest and raised her tail up in pain.
And the wolf and his friend were already there. They saw that the opponents were coming towards them, and it seemed to them that the dog was carrying a saber with him - they mistook the raised tail of the cat for a saber. And the unfortunate cat hobbled on three legs, and they thought that it was she who was lifting a stone every time to throw at them. And they became scared: a wild pig climbed into the leaves, and a wolf jumped onto a tree.
A dog and a cat came up and saw that no one was there, and they were very surprised. But the wild pig could not hide entirely in the foliage - its ears stuck out. The cat looked around carefully, and then the pig suddenly moved its ears. The cat thought that the mouse was moving and how it would jump on her, and she bit her very, very hard. The pig got up with a great howl, ran as fast as he could and shouted:
- The culprit behind the whole affair is sitting on the tree over there! The cat and the dog looked up and saw a wolf there, and he felt ashamed that he had shown himself to be such a coward, and then he made peace with the dog.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru