One day the wolf became very hungry. He crawled out of his lair on the mountain and went down the forest slope into the valley. He scoured the fields and roads for a long time. He was completely desperate to find prey, he was tired and wanted to lie down to rest, when he suddenly noticed two fat rams grazing peacefully in a large clearing. The wolf quickened his pace and after a few minutes found himself next to them.
- Bon appetit! “I’m glad to see you, dear sheep,” said the wolf.
“Welcome, mountain wolf,” answered the rams. “What brought you to our region?”
- Yes, here’s the thing, dear sheep: this day I haven’t had a drop of poppy dew in my mouth all day. Therefore, I intend to eat you both immediately.
- Well, well! - responded one of the rams, the older one. “Let’s do this: before you eat us, judge our dispute.” Do you see the meadow? We need a surveyor to split it in half. Otherwise, as soon as we come here, we start quarreling. Each thinks that the other is taking away the freshest and most delicious grass from him. While we argue and quarrel, our appetite disappears. So we ask you: divide this meadow in half, put an end to our dispute.
The wolf became thoughtful.
- How can I divide it? — he looks around. “That meadow is so big!” Do you know where his middle is?
“It’s really nothing,” answered the ram. “I’ll go to one end of the meadow, and my friend to the other.” We will stand just opposite each other. You give us a sign, we will gallop to you as fast as we can. Where we meet, there is the middle.
“You came up with a good idea,” the wolf praised the ram.
The sheep went - one to the right, the other to the left, reached the end of the meadow and stopped. The wolf gave them a sign, the rams jumped up and ran straight at the wolf at full speed. He didn’t even have time to look back before they knocked him off his feet. The wolf fell to the ground and lay there for a long time, and when he came to his senses, there was no trace of the ram.
The wolf groaned, groaned and, barely able to stand, trudged home. He trudges along the road and says:
“Neither my grandfather nor my father ever took up their own business. They did what they were trained to do. But how well we lived! They scoured the mountains and forests, caught goats and sheep. Why did I, a good-for-nothing, take up my own business and decide to become a land surveyor?!
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru