One day the fox climbed into the chicken coop, ate to his heart's content and quickly ran away before the owner noticed anything.
But then the fox felt very thirsty; she began to look for somewhere to drink, but could not find a drop of water anywhere. Almost dying of thirst, she wandered everywhere until she finally came across a well. Without hesitation, the fox jumped into the bucket tied to it, hoping to find at least some water in it. But the bucket, under the weight of her body, began to fall to the bottom of the well, lifting another bucket to the top. At that time, a wolf passed by. He saw a fox at the bottom of the well and asked her:
- How did you manage to fall there, sister? - I saw a lot of fish there, brother, and went down to fish. If you don't believe it, come here and you will see it with your own eyes. Oh brother, what hearty and tender food this is! - What happened, sister? This is the first time you invite me to eat. This has never happened before. The insidious fox objected: “If you doubt that I am telling the truth, my friend, look at the bottom of the bucket and you will see a big fish.”
The wolf believed the fox and jumped into the bucket. It began to descend quickly, and the other bucket, with the fox, began to rise to the top. When the buckets were level, the wolf saw that the fox was climbing up, and asked in amazement: “Where are you going?” “Such is our life, it’s like a ladder: one goes up, the other goes down,” the fox answered insidiously.
At the very moment when the wolf sank to the bottom of the well, the fox safely jumped out of his bucket onto the ground. Pleased with her cunning, she was just about to run away, when suddenly she saw a dog blocking her path.
-Where are you going? - asked the dog. “What were you doing here?” “I took revenge on the wolf for you,” answered the fox and began to boastfully tell how she tricked the wolf. “You did well,” said the dog, “the wolf deserves death.” But you know, I don’t like deception and I hate deceivers, you should get what you deserve.
Then the dog rushed at the fox, grabbed it by the throat and strangled it.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru