In ancient times, they say, hares ate tigers.
Once a blacksmith went into the forest to chop wood into coals. Just at this time the hare was chasing the tiger. He drove him to where the blacksmith was chopping wood. The tiger is hiding, and the hare is prowling around.
This is where the tiger speaks. To the blacksmith, that means he says:
- Hey, save me.
“No, I won’t,” answers the blacksmith. “You’ll eat me right away.”
“I won’t eat you,” said the tiger.
Well, the blacksmith hid it. Then the tiger says to him:
– Don’t you dare tell anyone about this. If you say so, I will eat you, just know that.
What's a poor guy to do? First he hid the tiger, and now the tiger says these words to him. He answers vaguely, in a slightly nasal voice: “Of course, I won’t tell.” While they were talking, a hare ran up. As soon as the blacksmith threw an ax at him, he immediately killed him to death. At parting, the tiger said again: “Don’t tell anyone,” and ran away.
The blacksmith lit some coal, put the bundle on his shoulders - and the hare too - and went home. When I arrived, it was already quite afternoon. He singed the hare himself and chopped the meat, and his wife cooked the rice and prepared the meat seasoning. They sat down to eat, and the wife asked: “Where did you kill the hare?” The blacksmith does not answer. Wife again:
- Well, tell me where you killed him. It's so delicious. Tomorrow I will go with you. You will catch hares, and then I will chop wood for you.
Then her husband says to her:
- I'll tell you something. Just be careful, don’t tell anyone.
“Be calm, I won’t tell,” he answers.
So her husband told her everything.
“The hare was chasing the tiger,” he says. Then I threw an ax at the hare and finished him off on the spot. The tiger then says to me: “Don’t tell anyone, otherwise I’ll eat you.” I’m warning you too: don’t tell it to anyone.
Well, in the evening the tiger himself came to his house, lay under the wall and heard everything. As soon as they went to bed, the tiger entered the house, grabbed the blacksmith and dragged him first into the yard, and then beyond the village. Who knows how he managed to drag it, but the tiger did not harm the blacksmith. He took him further into the forest and laid him on the ground, and the blacksmith’s thighs were shaking with fear. The tiger saw this, was surprised and asked:
- Look how your thighs are shaking. Why would that be?
“Yes, I just put a hare in my stomach,” the blacksmith answers. “And now he’s asking to come out.”
- Wait, wait! - says the tiger. - Don't let him out. Let me go away for a bit first.
“Okay,” he says. – I’ll hold him still. Just hurry up, don't delay.
The tiger ran away and the blacksmith went home. His guess saved him.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru